As you know, I am a fan of both DDR and Dancing With The Stars Show. I am very excited to report of a new show coming out in the fall called "DDR With The Stars". Click here for more info!

Microsoft researchers consider the user of a DDR pad for the computer user interface. More...

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You don't need two legs to play DDR!
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As I as walking around inside Best Buy store on the corner of 26th street and 6th avenue I saw a DDR pad next to a home theater system. I looked where it was connected and discoverd an XBox console on the floor behind all of the fancy amplifiers and dvd players on the shelves. I started stepping on the pad and a sales person asked me if I wanted to play. I said yes and he gladly switched the TV input from broadcasting a foodball game to the XBox output. I stayed there for about 20 minutes playing as curious customers where asking me "how does this work?"

There are tonns of videos that I posted in subsequent entries. But here are the best ones which are worth watching: I will add more videos to this list as I watch them. So far I've been so busy cataloging them that I didn't actually have time to watch them. If you have a suggestion for "the best video", please post a comment.

In the morning of the final day, the Expert Tech division continued from where it left off no Saturday. The best players competed who got recalled into semifinals and finals of the tournament. Below are the videos. Please help me identify the songs and the players.

Congratulations to Reflexx for winning the Expert Tech division of the tournament. He walked away with $1000 cash prize!


Honorable mention goes to Pickles for taking the 2nd place. He came to New York all the way from Northern Canada to take part in the tournament.
After the Expert Tech division, the rest of the day was dedicated to the Standard Division where the contestants were playing on Standard level competing for a $500 cash prize.

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<p>The second day of the tournament was the highlight of the whole event. It resumed the Freestyle division competition which had been stopped early the day before because of the trouble installing the 4th+Mix into the machine. Following Freestyle came the Expert Tech division which included some of the best DDR players in the country.</p>
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This is simply amazing!!! Here are the videos of Sketch playing the hardest songs of the machine on Heavy level facing away from the screen. At one point he reaches up to 547 combo!

Here is the video of the top DDR players completing the Oni (Non Stop) course of several hardest songs on the machine. The Oni Course is Legend Road. The songs are Max 300, MaxX Unlimited, Sakura, the Legend of Max, and Paranoia Survivor Max Oni.
Please <a href=http://journals.rpungin.fotki.com/ddr/entry/ftrqgkfrfq/?cmd=postcomment#comment>;help me</a> identify the players in order of their appearance.
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Below are the Freestyle videos. I need help identifying the players and the song names. If you know the people in the video or the song they are dancing to, please post a comment.

Freestyle Top 3 Place Winners
Below are the videos of the routines put together by the top 3 place winners of the Freestyle competition.
Improv
Videos below are from the section of the Freestyle competition where the contestants had to improvise their steps on the fly to the random song set to Shuffle mode. This means that they don't know the step patterns in advance. This is why you see them look at the screen fairly often.
Routines
These are the videos of pre-choreographed routines. Each contestant has memorized the steps and is facing the audience as he is showing his moves.

The following are the videos of the Expert Tech division which included the experienced players competing for the most number of perfect steps.

Got off work early just go catch the tail end of the Freestyle divison. Got to Javits at around 5:30. There were plenty of people in the audience and the DDR machine was put on a platform for better visibility. There were also two flat-panel screens on both sides, although only one of them was working showing the footage of the stage shot by some unidentified by me camera. I pulled out my camcorder right away to make sure not to miss some action on the stage. Unfortunately the announcers did not have a microphone and they had to scream from the top of their lungs. I really wish they fix this for Saturday 'cause there will be many more people in the audience.

The first contestant did some nice moves to Share My Love. I guess it does not matter what mod it is, since you're not facing the screen anyway.

The next one danced to Get Up 'n Move. He actually missed quite a few steps, but was able to clear the song. I liked his moves. Some of them went very well with the music.

The next guy came all the way from California! His act was the most original. He opened it saying that they have a lot of beaches in California and his song was about them. Then he attached a sign to the machine which read "Drop the Thong". He put up a little amp with a microphone. As the music started, he rapped some modified lyrics of Drop The Bomb with the refrain which was printed on the sign. This was quite amuzing especially when at the end he actually dropped couple of thongs into the judges.

Then they conducted the raffle. The tickets cost $1. A girl won a DDR Bucket containing Japan-made soft DDR pads. I can't remember if anyone else one anything. If anyone knows, please leave a comment.

Following the raffle they announced that they will change the mix on the machine from DDR Exreme to 4th+. Unfortunately there were some complications with installing the new mix and the machine was not working until the end. Bummer... But they said that they would continue the Freestyle division tomorrow. So I better go to sleep to get up on time to see it!

This weekend Javits Center is about to be filled by more than 50,000 attendees and exhibitors displaying the latest video game and gadget technology at an expo called Digital Life a.k.a. Game On NY. What I am excited about the most is the DDR Tournament with the top cash prize of $1000. On Saturday is the Experts division. I'll definately be there to watch some of the best DDR players from the East Coast!

More Information: GameOnNY.com DigitalLife.com DDR Tournament Info DDR Tournament Schedule and Discussion Purchase Tickets

Thursday

I got to the Javits Center 15 minutes before closing (7PM). Things were winding down. To find the DDR area was easy by just hearing the music. There was one DDR Exreme machine surrounded by about 30 people. To the side was a TV with PlayStation DDR Extreme with Eye Toy. No one was using the Eye Toy though.
Here are some photos.
And here is a video of Monica and Gilbert doing "Cartoon Heroes" on Heavy. Gilbert is only 11 years old.

Is Dance Dance Revolution just a game or is it a sport? I don't know the answer, but there are plenty of competitive DDR events organized all over the world. On April 10, 2004 the first official European Cup DDR Tournament took place. It was held in Norway at a yearly event called "The Gathering". More than 50 competitors from many European countries took part in the tournament and the three finalists walked away with prizes and cups. The machine used at the tournament was "Dancing Stage Euromix 2".

Click here to download (642MB) a 1-hour video of the elemination round of the tournament.

Here is an example of a up-scale DDR tournament.

Here are some links to DDR Tournament web pages:

• Sony Metreon, San Francisco (August, 2000)

Some people get to memorize the steps of a DDR song to the extent that they can turn away from the screen and create their own choreography. This is what is known as freestyle dancing. Check out these video clips that demonstrate this:

The following news article was published today in San Jose's
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<b>Arcade Moves</b>

DON'T SHOOT, JUST DANCE WHEN PLAYING NEW VIDEO GAME
By Graham Toben

Channing Conger, a junior at Crystal Springs High School in Hillsborough, walks into the Malibu Grand Prix arcade in Redwood City. After exchanging his dollar bills for tokens, he walks up to a machine with blaring sounds and flashing lights.

But he's not looking to shoot up ghouls or try his hand at car racing. He's there to dance.

When his turn comes up, he steps onto a metal platform and selects a song. He stamps out a beat by coordinating his feet with blazing arrows on the screen. By the time he is done with the song, he is out of breath but smiling.

Conger is a fan of ``Dance Dance Revolution,'' or DDR, a game that helped usher in a new breed of video games based on rhythm instead of the traditional shooter games.

``The simplicity of the game draws in people from all ages. It's simple to understand but near impossible to perfect,'' Conger said.

DDR has helped blaze a trail for new, musically oriented games, with Konami, the maker of DDR, leading the way. Now gamers can test their coordination and skills with a variety of new games:

• ``Guitar Freaks''-- use a guitar to play popular songs;

• ``Beatmania'' -- tests DJ skills;

• ``Taiko No Tatsujin'' -- Taiko drumming game;

• ``Mambo a Go Go'' and ``Samba de Amigo'' -- conga drum and maraca simulation.

Some education officials see benefits from these games.

``What's unique and attractive about these games is that it integrates the ways in which people think and learn -- there's a kinesthetic element to it that you can't find in a shooting game,'' said Lori Hamilton-Durbin, who is the head of the Middle School at Nueva School in Hillsborough.

These games are helping break the gamer-as-couch-potato stereotype.

Some people have actually used it to lose weight. Xbox and Playstation versions of DDR have a workout mode in which dancers can track how many calories they have used.

Tyson Mao, a junior at the California Institute of Technology, says that while he hasn't lost weight, ``it's fun just to be physically moving'' in an arcade.

``I like it because it's something I can excel at,'' Mao added.

The basic premise is to require players to repeat a rhythm. In DDR, a player stands on a metal pad marked with four arrows -- up, down, left and right -- with the dancer in the middle of the arrows. As the song begins, arrows scroll up the screen until they are in shadow at the top. When the arrow is inside the shadow, the dancer steps on the corresponding arrow.

But as simple as it sounds, it can take years to perfect. ``I've been playing for three years,'' said Conger, ``and I'm still not half as good as others are.''

Mao agreed. ``You go back time after time because there are always harder and harder songs. You're forced to do better and better.

``Also,'' Mao said, ``it's just plain addictive.''

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Dance Dance Fever - Valley arcade rats find fame on the DDR Dance Pad</a>
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Gotta dance (dance): Dance arcade craze takes hold on North Shore</a>
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<img src=http://www.ctv.ca/generic/images/video/logo4sky.gif border=0><br>Yet another video on loosing weight with DDR</a>
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<img src=http://www.foxnews.com/images/headers/fnc_logo.gif border=0 align=left>Players Break a Sweat With Video Games</a>
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<img src=http://images5.fotki.com/v88/photos/6/6766/26672/ddrpc-vi.jpg align=left><p>Since I did not want so spend the money to buy PlayStation just to play Dance Dance Revolution, I decided to buy the <a href=http://www.konamihwi.com/DDRPC/index2.php>;PC version produced by Konami</a>. It turned out to be a waste of money. Allthough the game looked identical to the PlayStation 1 version, it did not respond to the game pad in a timely fasion which defeated the whole point of the game.</p><br clear="all">
<p>Later I found out that there are two free programs for PC that are called "DDR Simulators":<br>

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Stepmania is an open-source project and DWI is developed by a single programmer and is distributed as donationware. I've tried both programs and I find DWI to be more accurate in detecting the button presses. So I would recommend DWI as the program to use on your PC.
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