ITG PS2 - Who's got it?

I do. What can I say - if you like ITG in the arcade, you'll like this game. It's pretty much identical.

Just like the arcade, it's a lot less flashy than DDR. You won't remember or even notice any of the background animations, and the arrows look plain. It's bare-bones and clearly designed for experts (what with the increased difficulty, stats out the wazoo, tons of mods and only one song that anyone outside of dance games will recognize).

I noticed the frame rate skipping once in a while, but not enough to bother me. Nor am I bothered by the ridiculous censoring (i.e. cutting out words and phrases such as "girlfriend" and "dark side of town"), because I couldn't understand most of the lyrics anyway.

What is going to be the problem for most players is it's just too hard. Almost all of the "expert" stepcharts are insanely difficult, even for the best players. And all the step charts are kicked up a notch (an 8-footer on "hard" is like a hard 9 in DDR, and some of the 9-footers on "expert" are as difficult or more difficult than 10's in DDR). But on top of that, the lower-difficulty stepcharts tend to be boring and repetitive. In fact, out of the 70+ songs on ITG, I've found only the following stepcharts to be outstanding:

-Delirium hard
-Rome0 and Julie8 expert
-That Sound expert
-While the Rekkid Spins expert
-Remember December hard

Whereas I could probably list 100 outstanding stepcharts on DDR Extreme alone.

But despite that it's definitely worth picking up, especially since Konami appears to be catering mostly to new players in the DDR home series. At least ITG attempts to continue the dance-game genre in new directions.

Just picked it up this morning, and played about a dozen songs on light mode (or whatever they call it). I haven't played in ages, so I thought I'd ease back into it.

Some of these level 2 songs are a lot harder (but still easy) that the equivalent 2-step song in DDR, so I have to agree that I expect the difficulty to be higher. That's OK though.

The music is very euro-pop and a lot less Japanese, which I guess is OK just for the sake of having a change of pace.

Does anyone have a directory of arcade machines?

I thought this didn't come out untill tomrorrow...oh well i better go pick it up! I've been waiting for this to come out for a while. Where did you gugys get it at?

ITGfreak.com has a location list - but I can tell you right now there's only two in Ohio: one in Columbus and one in Macedonia.

I pre-ordered mine directly from Red Octane several months ago and it came Tuesday morning.

I preordered too and got it this morning. While I still haven't played it because I had it shipped to my dad's office, I've played it in the arcade.

I can say I'm excited that it's a home release, because now I'll be able to build up my stamina and such like I couldn't really before, because playing the same seven songs on DDR gets boring. I only really play the expert charts, except for a few nines on hard and the ten and the eleven on hard. Hopefully I can play at my friend's house tommorrow, and we'll explore it.

Oh, BTW, the fastest way to unlock the game is to enter in this cheat code at the main menu.

URURLDLDURDLULDR

You should see sparkles if you did that right.

What are the unlock conditions? I don't mind earning the new songs. :)

Every ten songs you play, you get something new.

If you want to play 200 songs, that is.:)

I actually kind of like earning the songs. It's always a surprise what's going to pop up.

Of course, it's not like it will be a surprise in this game, since every ITG song is on it. It's better on DDR home games, when you could get any of hundreds of songs from a dozen mixes.

pinkdoom - do you use the bar? Can you play stuff like Delirium expert and Vertex without it at home?

I use the bar, but I have to really. The hardest stuff I've passed No Bar is: DDR-Legend of Max or Maxx, whichever you think is hardest. ITG-Infection(I love this song, so I memorized it basically on stepmania from playing it so much).

But I've only Played ITG on a pad in the Arcade, since my old one is on the fritz after a year and 3 months of play. Delirium and Vertex I actually did pass, and I made it to the Slowdown of Euphoria with only a few misses before I realized I might throw up if I kept going.

I am going to a local gaming center today to play on Cobalts, I'll see how I do no bar.

Edit-And I'm back from that gaming center, and I passed Charlene, Remember December, Xuxa, Infection, and Bend Your Mind without the bar. I could probably do Vertex, since it's really easy, but I chair-raped it once and then forgot about it.

. *** Edited 6/17/2005 11:32:44 PM UTC by thepinkdoomofmonkeys***

ITG home version is actually growing on me more and more. There are more decent stepcharts than I originally thought, including Let Your Love Go Blind, The Game, Turn It On (all expert) and Hardcore of the North (hard).

Most of the songs are great (I couldn't hear them so well in the arcade) and I can't wait to get a CD soundtrack of the music.

The downside of the difficulty and longer songs is that I get tired now after about 30 minutes of playing, yet I don't feel like quitting - so I sit down with the controller for another hour or so. Not good for my physical fitness plan...

It definitely is harder, but there are some songs that grow on me. What they consider a 5 I'd call a 7 in DDR.

Since I now have five different mixes (if you count ITG) I've been revisiting some of the older ones to find stuff I didn't even have A's on, let alone a AA. It's like meeting old friends for the first time in years.