However, Ubisoft has crept onto their turf with the surprise Wii hit, Just Dance. With the endless parade of Dance Dance Revolution titles only being able to take the genre so far, a change was needed. The catalyst for this change came, when Microsoft finally revealed Project Natal to be Kinect. And to compete with the MTV Games announcement of Dance Central, Konami presented their own Kinect dance game, Dance Masters, at E3 2010. Unlike the previous stable of Konami dance titles, which required a mat or the most recent Wii titles which required the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, Dance Masters only requires the Kinect camera.
A Marilyn moment coming up?
Having gone 'hands-free', some readers may be scoffing at us right now and thinking, “What! Seriously?” but if you saw the queues to get into some of the other Kinect games and how many things we had to cover, then well, beggars can’t be choosers. In truth, menu navigation was much tougher than had been previously demonstrated in the Microsoft Conference. We knew the song and difficulty we wanted but it kept flipping when we didn’t want it to! Maybe it still has a bit of calibrating before it’s ready for the masses?
Having picked Night of Fire, we found that the dancing was surprisingly enjoyable and quite responsive. With two of is ini tow, we mainly played on the ‘light’ mode, where we had to mimic the silhouette action on screen or touch circles that appeared above our heads on the screen. It’s difficult to explain, especially since the current screenshots don’t reveal too much. However, it’s quite easy to get a hold of once you get going. It seems that the game is designed so that you start off quite smoothly, as the silhouettes are well spaced out and would help teach you to do the actual dance. Most of the dances we saw seemed to have been inspired by Japanese ‘Para Para’ group dances.
To really explain how well it worked, a divergence of the usual PALGN style convergence is required. When it comes to dancing or rhythm games, I'm totally hopeless. Seriously, I’ve failed songs on Guitar Hero on easy, I’m that bad. However, while playing Dance Masters, I somehow managed to string combos of 10 and more together. Success! Having even managed to beat the Mindscape PR that was giving us the tour, I fancied my chances at more opposition. That was until two Japanese journalists came on stage, cranked up the difficulty and totally blew everyone away… Yeah, no chance. On higher difficulties, you actually have to complete the dance properly and use advance moves such as switching places, rather than just match the silhouettes as they come, to have any hope of competing.
Nice hat.
There are two issues with the game that may become a bit of a stepping stone once it’s released. The first is Kinect specific, and one that is highly likely to become a sticking point for a lot of players. Simply, there is a level of feedback missing, so it can be difficult to tell exactly what you did wrong, other than trying to see it in the TV. For a fast-paced dance game, this will most certainly be an issue players will be weary of. Secondly, while the game will have 30 tracks to dance to and further downloadable ones, they seem to heavily favour the Asian market. Not a problem, per se, but something that may limit its overall appeal.
Dance Masters does two things. Firstly, it proves that the Kinect does have a purpose and a place. While its application to the ‘core’ gaming side will depend on how games like Child of Eden work out, the casual markets around rhythm, dance and exercise seem like they will be well covered. Secondly, it gives dance and rhythm game fans, who may or may not be tired of DDR, something different and a ‘hands-free’ approach to look forward to.
I will confirm for you as soon as I have youtube access 
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