For the uninitiated, Dance Dance Revolution is like a game of Twister with a backbeat—match your footsteps on the floor mat to the arrows that scroll on the screen, no matter how crazy they get. New for MAX is the freeze step, which requires you to hold a step as long as the arrow requires—and you may still need to move your other foot elsewhere at the same time. You’ll find options for couples, two-pad dances, a workout mode, and more. The Edit mode returns, giving players a chance to create, save, and trade their own dance patterns fairly easily. Some moves can be traded between MAX and the PlayStation game DDR Konamix. Excellent! With 65 songs—over 100 minutes of very varied music—and multiple skill levels, you’ll find tons of variety. As always, control is best with a floor mat, but you’ll want a standard controller for Edit mode. The graphics look pretty enough—more strange patterns and cutesy characters thrown behind the scrolling arrows—but this isn’t supposed to be a visual powerhouse. It doesn’t matter if you’re a DDR star or have two (or more) left feet—games like DDRMAX are worth playing just for the giddy I-didn’t-know-games-could-be-like-this experience. Try this one with friends but without inhibitions.
