In The Groove

Anyone here ever played In the Groove. Its the game that is slowly filling the gap that DDR has created by not relaseing new mixes. Its really awesome.

http://www.roxorgames.com/itg/index.html

And it goes right into a DDR Machine.

Fun-N-Stuff in NEOhio is supposed to be getting one theres only like 20-30 in the country. *** Edited 11/14/2004 7:18:35 AM UTC by ByMyslf18***

My local arcade just got it and I love it. The songs are good, most of the steps are pretty good all of the songs are really hard on expert. And you can save screenshots and stuff on to your USB flash drive.

Its pretty much stepmania with set songs and a new skin. I love it ITG>DDR

Heard of it, never seen it. Sounds really, really illegal to me.

I know of a place 15 min. away that has it. I've never played it though. I think the reason is because like Den i consider it to be a widely known bootleg. ITG just hasn't grabbed me yet.

^You should go try it Kel, I've not yet heard one bad review of the game.

They all say on DDRfreak that the music is awesome, the steps are awesome, and it's legal, because of the changes they made to arrow scrolling and music.

It is really, really stupid however that it can only work in a DDR Machine, that you must own before you get it.

Well its just like a cabinet change...Have you ever seen an Area 51 cabinet with another shooting or other game in it. Plus DDR machines arnt really supposed to be in US anyways. The extreme your playing on is problay bootleg anyways so....I suggest you downlaod some of the simfiles for Stepmania....http://www.itgsimfiles.cjb.net/

The steps are pretty good there are a ton of really really hard steps...(Charilne, Queen of light, vertex, Hardcore of the north)and theres more than 2 arrows at the same time, so they make you use your hands or knees or other body parts. Only a handfull of songs have them and they really arnt that hard.

Ok remember when i said ITG hasn't grabbed me yet? Well it has grabbed me now.

It definitely fills the gaps the DDR had. The game seems to have a faster framerate than DDR, plus it has...well here i'll just compare them.

Song Selection: DDR EX has over 200 songs to choose from while ITG has only about 60-70. ITG's songs are about 2 minues long tho.

Step Charts: I think they're pretty much even here.

Difficulty: The pinnacle of DDR's difficulty is a flashing 10. While ITG's is a 13. Not to mention that ITG's 8fters are like DDR's hard 9's (not "cartoon heroes" hard but they keep you going).

Mods: ITG features almost double the mods that DDR has to offer. Almost everything found in stepmania.

Style of music: DDR has all kinds of music, literally all kinds. ITG tends to focus more on trance, techno and hip-hop (whether you guys like freestyling or not, "which MC was that" will be one my songs i style to :) )

Styles of play: Other than the normal way of play, DDR has Nonstop mode and Challenge Mode. ITG has a mode called Battle, and a mode called Marathon which i think is similar to Nonstop. I don't know how Battle works.

Memory Support: DDR uses the playstation memory cards while ITG uses USB cards.

Score Saving/Name Entry: You can enter your name after you finish your round of songs on ITG (if you do well enough) You can only do that after you do well on certain nonstop and oni course in DDR.

Grades: DDR's grade consist as follows; E, Falied, D, C, B, A, AA, AAA. ITG's grades consist as follows; Failed, D-, D, D+, C-, C, C+, B-, B, B+, A-, A, S, Star, Double Star, Triple Star, Quad Star.

Other little things: ITG has 2 new "goodies" implemented into the steps. One new feature is called Hands which is sort of self explanatory. You have to deal with more than 2 arrows on certain songs. Then there are things called Mines which are little circles that scroll up with the arrows, and basically id your foot is on an arrow when the mine hits that corresponding arrow, then it'll explode decreasing your life bar (which is now located vertically at the side of the screen). You can turn both Mones and Hands off in the options menu.

Other little things added are the little pieces of info you get when flipping through songs. It tells you the difficulty, the "foot" rating, the number of steps, jumps, mines, hands, who did the best on the song, and how well they did it (going by percentage, not point scoring) and your best.

So basically ITG just took what DDR had done so well, and added to it. I got a little taste of it at James' Games (about 15 minutes away) and i loved it, absolutely loved it. If it wasn't for my knee injury, i'd be playing more. >_>

Battle mode is when two players battle and you have to get a certan number of combo steps and your bar will go up and when it gets to the top a new mod is added to the other players side, and the mods get harder and harder...its like magic dance for stepmania.

^^ Told ya you'd like it. ;)

I wish that the nearest ITG machine wasn't in Florida.

I wish the Nearest Extreme machine wasn't in Knoxville.

My city finally got In the Groove last week, and I played it last night. I wasn't really that excited about it, because it seemed like a rip-off to me. But now that I've played it... it's as if someone compiled a wishlist of DDR players and incorporated everything into the new game. It's awesome.

The 2-minute-long songs are the first thing you notice. That extra 30 seconds really tests your stamina. I was playing mostly on the "hard" difficulty, though I tried a couple of "expert" songs. The only one I passed was "Rome0 and Julie8," which is a 9 on expert.

The expert songs are extremely hard. I know a guy who can pass the Legend Road Oni without breaking a sweat, but he was having trouble with some of the expert songs.

I thought the Hands and Mines would be stupid, but they're actually incredibly fun! Especially the hands. The bad news is, only two of the "hard" songs have them. Mines are fun too, but my brain can't read them yet when there's a ton of them on the screen at once.

There are so many mods. I like how the BPM of the song is shown on the mod screen, so you don't have to remember. The only mod I tried apart from speed mods is "Overhead," which makes the game look pretty much exactly like DDR. :)

I don't have a USB card, but having the ports there is cool. You can save screenshots and scores, and even continue your combo from your last game. You can continue your combo between songs, too, even without a card.

I liked all the songs I played. There's one, "Disconnected," that sounds almost exactly like Paranoia, and it's really fun. Another song reminded me of Exotic Ethnic. Lots of songs have really fun tempo changes and stops (all of which fooled me the first time, obviously). There's a couple of classical songs, too, including "Tell," the William Tell Overture.

Overall it's a surprisingly excellent game, and I'm not going to miss the 5th mix that it replaced.

It's at the Magic Mountain Polaris, just off I-71 north of Columbus, if anybody wants to try it out. It's only the second one in Ohio; the other's at Fun n' Stuff in Macedonia.

EDIT: See my blog for a different angle.
*** Edited 2/17/2005 2:41:42 PM UTC by Den***

Perhaps I'll give it a shot this year when we stay in Worthington for volleyball.

The one thing about In Teh Groove is that I feel like a complete n00b again when I even look at the machine! The mod list is crazy crazy.

Just wanted to update, in case anyone's out of the loop:

In the Groove is coming out in May for PS2. It's an exact translation of the arcade version, plus five additional unlockable songs. Everything's included: marathon courses, all mods, doubles, training, etc.

There isn't an exact release date yet, but you can reserve it at Red Octane's website, and you get a free T-shirt and keychain - woot.

As far as ITG goes - after quite a few hours of play, I have gone back to playing Extreme (even though the nearest Extreme is three times farther away than the ITG). ITG just drains my stamina too fast, it's *too* hard and not fun enough. That's not to say it's not very fun, just that Extreme is more fun - and of course it has four times the number of songs. I just recently found a song on Extreme I had never played before, and I've been playing it for three years.

Anyway, I still pre-ordered my ITG home version... anything's better than the PS2 DDR games.

I love ITG Yes it is very draining when it comes to stamina, but i find it much more fun than ddr.

There was also a preview of ITG2 at an arcade tournament for ITG today, and there are more songs being added on... on top of what was alredy previews at ASI....

heres a small list:

Digital Explosion - High
Digital Explosion - Summer in Belize
DJ Zombie - My Life Is So Crazy
Nina - Life of a Butterfly
Nina - Baby Don't You Want Me
Onyx - !
Smiley - Renaissance
Takoyaki - Go *60* Go
When Machines Dream - Cosmic Unconsciousness

Link: http://www.itgfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1541&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

I like ITG's songs, mostly. I like the Single steps up to about Hard 9 max. Double steps are hit and miss, and I've tried them up to about level 8 Hard max.

Regarding the various Stepmania arrow mods, I really don't bother with them. They are there in selected Marathon courses (and the only ones I think are cool looking are the Beat and Dizzy mods, well and maybe the Wave mod as well), but otherwise the Hallway perspective and Metal arrow scheme is just fine.

Stepwise, the songs generally go with the music, or have eighth note streams that flow with the music, that is, until the Expert levels are selected. I've seen others play Expert, beyond level 9, it's just out of control.

So, I don't like how ITG becomes basically "In The Spaz" after about level 10, though. The so-called "Beatmania syndrome" at its finest starts to show itself, where the steps not only follow every note of the music, but in some cases, add complexity well beyond the notes of the music. I personally find that there are too many sixteenth runs, even 16th triplet and 32nd runs when the songs are slower tempo (Anubis is a great example of this). Some players may like them, though, but that sort of challenge is usually hard without necessarily being fun.

As with other dance games, though, lots of players still are using speed mods due to the crammed up arrows and mines when playing ITG. That's not a statement about the players, though, but a statement as to how the arrow interface gets jammed up and cluttered due to its limitations. Having to use a 3x or 4x speed mod just to see all the steps, hands, and mines shows that the game designers needed to make a more readable interface. Up to Hard level 8 seems to be playable at 1x, though, at least using Hallway and Metal arrows.

I'm hoping ITG2 is a much better game, with steps that are challenging, but also fun to play at any difficulty level. *** Edited 4/24/2005 9:41:01 PM UTC by RideSafety***

Roxor (who created In The Groove) is being sued:

http://www.konami.co.jp/en/news/topics/050511/

That's not a surprise. I wonder if it'll delay ITG for the PS2...?

In other news, I checked yesterday and ITG is in our GameStop computers now. i.e. you can reserve it at your local shop now. It'll be $39.99 if/when it comes out.

The only thing that is being sued is whether Roxor must pay royalties for using Konami's cabinets. This will not affect: PS2 version, ITG2, whether or not ITG is a DDR ripoff.

(patiently waits for copy of ITGPS2)

The technology section of my local paper yesterday listed ITG as coming out this week. But I don't think it's gonna happen. Red Octane still has not given a release date beyond "May 2005," and at this point, I'm doubting that's even going to happen.

The new release period is sometime in June. That is all that's known.