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.

These days, it seems like we can’t go a couple of weeks anymore without a new DDR game coming out. That said, the series gears up for its third Xbox release with Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3. Do some of the new modes give the series some freshness or is it just more of the same?

Dance Dance vets can skip this paragraph; novices, however, take a gander. If you’re unfamiliar with DDR then here is a very brief rundown on how the game works. A series of arrow will make their way up the screen and when they get to the set of outlined arrows at the top, you must hit the directions that correspond to them. On a controller it’s simple and downright boring – that’s why Konami sells the game in a bundle pack with their now-famous dance pad. Playing DDR with this pad and following the movements dictated by the arrows will make it look like you’re actually dancing, that is though only on the higher difficulties. And just like other rhythm games, timing is the key. Hit the arrows at the right time and you’ll get a “perfect” rating and the occasional “great” if you’re off by a split-second. Continue getting those ratings and you’ll perform combos and keep your approval meter high. Get “bad” and “boo” often and you’ll be booted off the pad and the song will end. Got all that? Good.

Now that the basics are out of the way, it’s time to look at some of the other options outside of the main dance mode. There’s party mode that features a good number of minigames to play if you’ve got friends and spare dance pads. You can play against the computer, but it definitely isn’t as fun if you were playing with real people. Attack plays like the versus mode in a puzzle game where step combos will cause viruses to attack the opposing player that prevent them from performing a successful combo of their own. Bomb is almost the same except step combos will pass the bomb around ala hot potato and the one caught with it when the timer runs out loses. Point is an interesting mode in that a point is lost when a player gets a worse rating on a step than the other, thus evenly matched players can expect some of these matches to last for quite a while. There’s also a quad mode, but we couldn’t test that out to its fullest extent since we don’t have four mats here at the office. Lastly, there’s score which is your standard high-point total wins, and challenge mode in which the game throws out goals you’ll need to meet. It’s a lot easier than the previous versions of the oni mode because most of the challenges take place over a small section of a song.

There’s also some things you can do on Xbox Live. You’ll be able to play in some of the multiplayer modes against other dancers across the globe, but the biggest appeal is downloading new song packs. However, at the time of this review there were none available. Also, be prepared to pay for the song packets if/when you download them.

The soundtrack feels quite different than other entries in the DDR franchise. It’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing - it’s just something that I personally didn’t care for either way. If you’re a fan of more popular songs, then you’ll really like this song list. You’ll find newer songs like “Hey Mama” from the Black Eye Peas and for the older crowd “Whip It” by Devo and “Rock Lobster” from the B-52’s. But, if you’re a fan of the Konami originals, especially the classic ones, then you’ll feel that that selection of songs is sorely underrepresented here. Yes, you’ll find the timeless hit “Butterfly”, but beyond that, there’s nothing much to appease fans of the classics.

Despite this being the latest DDR release, the overall experience hasn’t changed much. It’s more of the same even with the new modes, and two of the more advertised modes come off as lackluster and flat-out boring because there isn’t any direction in them.

The first is freestyle mode. Here you can dance however you like to a song with no limitations due to a passing meter or arrow pattern. Thus this entire mode is, well, pointless. It gets worse when text messages appear from time to time to remind you to “jump more” or “get back on the rhythm”. There’s nothing to lead you, there’s nothing you’re aiming for, yet the game is still telling you how to dance? The idea was nice, but unfortunately there’s nothing satisfying about it.

The other is quest mode. In this mode, you’re an aspiring DDR champion traveling to different cities all over the globe to show off your skills and gain a fanbase. To do this, you’ll need to dance songs and acquire points. When you’ve finally accrued the target amount, you move on to the next city. And that’s all – no point, no ending to tie up all the loose ends. Another bad thing is the fact that songs only dole out points in the hundreds while the target amount is in the hundreds of thousands. So, you’re stuck dancing for long amounts of time just to move on to the next city to start the process all over again. The only reason why I can see anyone playing this mode is to get the songs on oni difficulty.

The same tried-and-true gameplay is still fun and solid as ever and should easily please fans of the series. However, it seems that Konami knows that the novelty of the gameplay has worn off and made a number of attempts to freshen things up a tad. Unfortunately, those attempts severely fall flat and what you’re left with is a game you’ve seen a dozen times over, just with a new soundtrack. The amount of enjoyment you get from it will depend on your tastes in music and whether or not you’re tired of the dancing to arrows bit.

Konami has done this a million times over and it’s still great.

Dancers and videos look cleaner than they have in years, but still minimal.

No matter your tastes in music, this game sounds terrific.

Dancing is still very fun, but the new modes aren’t.

With over 70 songs to choose from, you’ll be spending a lot of time on the dance pad.