The only game where your heart rate is a high score, and as stupid as it's possible to look without involving other people.
Dance Dance Revolution resuscitated ailing arcades by providing something players couldn't - or wouldn't - play at home. Bright flashing light, loud noises and ridiculous dancing replicated the worst bits of a rave by using J-Pop instead of drugs. It triggered the reinvention of arcades as exercise centers, and like every other original idea in history was immediately ripped off (by Pump It Up and In the Groove.)
There is absolutely nothing that someone, somewhere won't master. DDR has been forced to up the difficulty with each release, evolving from "You mean I have to move?" to "Anything that passes this is a robot and must be destroyed."
Most players first exposure to songs difficult beyond the actual "move your body while videogaming" concept. Sounds like a techno DJ choking to death on an air raid siren and plays like he's trying to take you with him.
The only slow 10-foot song, where the difficulty of speed is replaced with exposure to bagpipe music. The song is widely considered to be impossible, with even expert players wimping out by applying arrow speed multipliers to make things easier.
This song doesn't have an artist name below the title, it has an Omega symbol as in "The Destroyer, The Final, The End of Things."Consists entirely of someone hammering the hell out of his drum in a rave and expecting your feet to keep up.
For a brief but hilarious period DDR was the next big "Threat To Your Children." Which should tell you everything you need to know about those stories, and if it doesn't we hope you don't have children. From "epilepsy-inducing heartattackmotron!" to "Neon-pop pedophile lure," the stories displayed the collective intelligence of a dead Borg. But by far the funniest was a local American paper's breathless report of a teen stealing thousands of dollars to fund his "DDR addiction."
First, if your teen rips off thousands and can only think to spend it on dancing, well done on raising the world's squarest kid. Nancy Reagan'll be sending a medal soon. Second, if your primary criminal fear is theft caused by a brightly colored dancing box then you're too busy being a Smurf to have anything worth stealing.
Though we would be pretty upset if someone stole those pants.
Dance Dance Immolation
The Burning Man festival finally lives up to its name and makes something that isn't just about smelly hippies, or at least has the chance of removing a few.
DDI armors the player in heavy plating making it impossible to dance in a co-ordinated manner, then punishes them for failing to dance in a co-ordinated manner. With flamethrowers. An actual Disco Inferno but with J-Pop (thereby ten times worse than anything Satan can come up with.)
The single most impressive player ever, and possibly the only DDR dancer who'll make non-players feel worse about themselves. If he had your legs he'd have tap-danced up Everest by now! What are you doing with them?
Finger Finger Revolution
It's a wonder the factory machines can make these without breaking down in laughter, but it's a handheld DDR controller.
The fact it comes with a John Travolta finger puppet proves that he either doesn't know about it, or feels he deserves punishment for some secret crime. The fact he's currently filming Wild Hogs 2 indicates the latter.
The following image is posting without comment, dignity, or self-respect.
It's just the scoring mechanism in later versions of DDR, but if they're going to program something called "Groove Radar" we've got to mention that. If only because DDR machines are the exact opposite of detecting coolness.