This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Eric Dayday.

Though the Dance Dance Revolution craze has died down greatly since its peak a couple of years ago, Konami hasn’t forgotten about those who still have the itch to move their feet on the dance pad. We’ve seen DDRMAX 2 and DDR Extreme the last two years and now Konami releases its second game under the Extreme moniker – Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2.

It’s good to know that even after all these years, the gameplay remains as solid and crisp as ever. The timing of the notes and presses is pretty generous this time around; not as unforgiving as a few of the previous entries, but not generous enough to make achieving a triple-A score cake.

The song list still isn’t varied with mostly techno and electronic-upped pop songs. That said, however, it should still satisfy both hardcore fans of the classics and fans looking for more mainstream stuff. You’ll find newer stuff like Sean Paul’s “Get Busy” and a cover of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love”. For the oldies, “Boom Boom Dollar” makes a return as does “Butterfly (Upswing Mix)” and “Captain Jack”.

Dance master mode looks like a new addition to the series, but it’s just mission mode with a new name. In this mode you’ll need to meet a certain goal, like 55 perfects, to move on to the next stage. The new thing I like, though, is that playing this mode for hours on end allows you to open up songs and other bonuses. In DDR Extreme 2, you’re given point values for each kind of step you achieve (perfect, great, good, etc), and at the end of the song, these points are stored in a type of bank. With these points you can buy new songs and new dancer avatars. But, as I said, playing through dance master opens some of these things up in a much faster manner because you are awarded more points than if you were just dancing in free or workout modes.

Eyetoy support carries over into the second Extreme game, though it’s still not much. There are a few hand motion games and the same hand cursors added with dance steps. The Eyetoy games are nothing new and won’t blow your mind away, but they’re still a nice option to have nonetheless.

The newest and biggest addition to the series is the online mode. Here you can upload scores, view leaderboards, and the best part – dance head-to-head against other DDR masters. To keep things at an even keel, skill level is determined by the number of hours you’ve logged, but that can be deceiving since many of the best players only have a few hours because of how recent the game is.

The problem with the online mode is that it’s basically unusable. It’s hard to find anyone online to go head-to-head against. In fact, in the time I spent online with the game, I found no one to play against.

Another major gripe is that only 24 of the 70-odd songs are unlocked and most of them are the mainstream stuff – the majority of the Konami originals need to be unlocked. This may irk the “old guard” of DDR, but it keeps the game alive for a while because of the sheer number of things to be unlocked.

Other than the essentially useless online mode, Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 doesn’t do anything new or “revolutionary”. It’s still a solid game that diehards of the series will eat up, but for those looking for some added spice will be left wanting until Konami ships out the next one.

Still as solid as ever.

Cleaner than previous versions, but still nothing but swirly flashy backgrounds.

Playlist should appeal to a wide range of people. Songs still pump out with loads of energy.

Getting up and dancing is still fun as ever. Online is useless.

New dancer avatars on top of over 50 songs to unlock should keep fans occupied for a long time.