POSTED 6/10/13


JUST DANCE 2014

Ubisoft
Xbox 360/Kinect (also on PS3/Move, Wii U, Wii)

Got boogie in your butt? Look, we know picking your nose is frowned upon by many, but there are less pooey places to dispose of your nose goblins...

Oops, wrong boogie. Which deserves a rousing round of “Duh!” considering the words “Just Dance” which hover somewhere above this very sentence.

Yep, it’s our annual dose of Ubisoft’s ace party machine, a dance game that focuses more on fun than being some sort of robotic, photocopied moves, mutant cross between Fred Astaire, Arlene Phillips, 1980s battery-operated plastic flowers with cute little sunnies and that creepy baby from Ally McBeal.

That being said, you do get to do the robot with Daft Punk feat Pharrell Williams (how despicable, credit snubbing Chic’s Nile Rodgers), just one of 13 (!) acts here with ‘feat’. Well, we guess you need them to dance...

Fuck, now we’re resorting to dad gags.

Cue incredulous chorus of “NOW?!”

Anyway... Even more than last year’s JD4, the track listing is short-sighted, much to the game’s detriment. No indie stuff here folks, and little that isn’t recent doof-based chart fodder or retro dance cheese, save for a cartoon show tune, ‘Ghostbusters’ and a ’60s throwback or two. Still, Mungo Jerry’s ‘In the Summertime’ does allow you to do big plushie fruit without having to wrangle a Husqvarna.

The operative word here is ‘tweak’, although a new MMO-like multiplayer affair and the ability to eschew the spotlight as a backup dancer are entertaining. The vaguely exercisical ‘Just Sweat’ is now more pervasive, and extra effects exist if you’re so up yourself that you think that anybody anywhere actually cares about your uploaded dance routines.

Insanely, there’s still no song export/import from older versions.

Still, for fun party neon graphical dance infusion, we know who we’re gonna call...

CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!