After playing a demo game at the local game store, I became enamored with Elite Beat Agents. I’ve always been excited by games with unique concepts, but a portable dance game seemed like a strange idea. Playing with the stylus gives a certain immediacy to the game, and it’s fun to see the dancers move around to the hits on the screen.
The songs are fun, but, of course, some don’t make much sense. The rock ballads don’t play well, but the upbeat pop songs get really exciting. The cover bands are decent for the most part, but some songs have strange breaks in them, or the beat fluctuates a little bit. I just about died when YMCA came out of the speakers.
As the game progresses, the songs do get harder. It can be hard to figure if you’re supposed to play along with the bass track, the vocals, or the lead guitar, and if you don’t like the song, it can be very hard to put in the effort of listening to the darn thing 15-20 times trying to figure out the pattern.
All in all, the game can be very fun to play. It’s very satisfying to conquer some of the trickier songs, and you can impress your friends with your mad dancing stylus skills.
-mlbradley
durden26@comcast.net