Game Review: Dance Factory
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What Parents Should Know
Parents should know that the game's main selling point is
players' ability to load music from their own CDs and build
custom dances. That means potential for adding music with
objectionable lyrics. The game also requires a dance pad.
Families who play this game can talk about the qualities that make a good dance song. Do you want to dance to a song just becuase it's popular -- or does it need to have a good groove? Families can experiment with different music -- kids might get a laugh at watching parents trying to dance to some blasts from the past.
Common Sense Media Review
It's crossed the mind of anyone who has played a dance pad
game for an extended period of time: "I'm sick of these
songs...if only I could load my own music!"
Well, that's what developers at Codemasters have delivered. But they didn't do much else.
Dance Factory has a few minor bells and whistles: a basic fitness mode that counts calories, an endurance mode that lets players dance through an entire CD, and unlockable avatars called "creatures" that are lame and have no dance floor flair.
But the song loading functionality is at center stage -- and performs brilliantly. Pick any CD from your collection and let DANCE FACTORY generate the collection of arrows that indicate when and where to step.
The real fun comes with raiding your music collection for wacky musical picks. Dancing to Jay-Z was predictably fun, but who would have thought The John Spencer Blues Explosion would make a great dance-pad match? Slow-grooving to Ravi Shankar was like doing Tai Chi, but the Squirrel Nut Zippers actually delivered a bit of swing. You options are only as limited as your CD library.
The only real drawbacks to Dance Factory are the game's cheap presentation (visuals aren't much more than a glorified screen saver) and occasional badly-generated dance. A dance editor solves the latter problem, but unfortunately you'll just have to dance your way through the low-rent package. In the end, you'll be boogying too hard to notice.
Families who like this game should check out our list of Best Games to Get Your Kids Moving.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
