Pump It Up

What are your opinions on it?

I personally think that the interface is crap on all versions, the songs are weirder, but the steps are more fun. But does it seem to anybody that all Pump machines are quiet?

I played Saturday night, and I got these grades:

A Winter Hard
A Beethoven Virus Hard
A She Likes Pizza Hard
A Turkey March Hard
A with one great on Dr. M Hard

I passed 2 Crazy songs, geesh, can you say death mode?

Even ad a DDR purist, it's not that I find the game play bad as much as I find the music to be horrible.

I can vouch for at least one PIU machine not being quiet... mine! :)

Seriously though, we've got a few guys on the staff here that swear that it's more fun than DDR. I personally can't stand the music anymore (probably because I hear about 3 songs over and over again in the attract mode).

I'm curious, what version are you guys seeing/playing? We've got Exceed, which AFAIK is the most current version.

The only thing good about PIU is that they are still actually making new versions, unlike DDR.

Otherwise, I hate it. The screen is bigger, but it looks fuzzy to me. The music is terrible. You can't see the difficulty of a song until after you select it. The arrows all look the same color. I hate the 5-arrow arrangement.

Jim, if Dave and Buster's had DDR, I'd be there a *lot* more often. Why doesn't it? Oh, fyi, I was there two weeks ago and the sound on Police Trainer 2 was turned off... wtf?

^You can move back after selecting a song, I think by hitting the down left arrow. Not positive it's that one, but there is a way.

The arrows are the same color, gold for middle, orange for top, and blue for bottom. This actually really helps your sightreading in DDR, since it's helping you distinguish between spacing.

I played PIU at a Dave and Buster's in Atlanta, but couldn't even pass a single song the machine's pads were so sucky.

Den,

A few locations do have DDR (actually, I think it's more like 2). Not sure the reason why - my guess is cost and revenue generated. It may also be that PIU is available in a projection screen while DDR is not. We like our games as big as possible!

To answer your question about PT2 - I was on vacation. It should be working now! :)

Look me up next time you're there. Maybe I'll give you a token or something ;)

I don't think I can find it, but Stephanie wrote D&B corporate and got some really lame excuse a couple of years ago. It was really pretty funny.

I would love to see that letter Jeff. They're in their own little world down there. They could really use some IT help too (I'm sooooo tired of clearing false virus messages off of our rechargers) - you interested? ;)

Actually, you did respond to it when Steph posted it, and basically said it was nonsense. :)

It probably has something to do with the fact that all DDR machines aside from DDR USA are illegal to own in America. That hasn't stopped other huge companies like GameWorks though.

Illegal for who? People keep saying that and I'd like someone to explain exactly why.

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Jeff said:
Actually, you did respond to it when Steph posted it, and basically said it was nonsense.

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Me and my short-term memory. I must be getting old!

[jimmybob grabs the walker out of the closet]

As far as the illegality... I'll try to explain this the best that I can - I don't have all of the specifics.

Basically, arcade games (video games especially) are designed to be sold only in certain regions of the world (similar to DVDs.) You have the exact same title, but it is only legal in certain parts of the world (also known as a parallel game). I believe this has mainly to do with the distribution network that games are sold through - parallel games effectively bypass this and cause distributors to not get their "share". During the attract mode or on boot-up, most games have a screen saying something to the effect of "This game can only be operated in North America." If it says something else, it is an illegal import.

A guy I worked for in Toledo actually sued a couple of manufacturers over this and won... at least for a while. A "sunset" rule was put in place making it illegal to import the parallel games again after a certain date (they were legalized in 1991, I think the sunset was 5 years or so).

This happened pre-web, so there's little info online. Here is a scan from industry mag RePlay from 1992 (interestingly on a manufacturer's site):

http://www.snk-capcom.com/Replay/1992JuneParallelsSFIIp40.htm *** Edited 11/16/2004 10:34:34 PM UTC by jimmybob***

Yes, but what law is being broken? I can understand the filing of civil suits for violating license agreements, but that in itself isn't "illegal."

I did some more digging...

http://www.gesmer.com/publications/softcopy/11.php

That fills in a few blanks, I think... One court applied the copyright law one way (in favor of Red Baron), the appeals court saw it a different way and ruled in favor of Taito. That explains the sunset provision.

OK, so this begs the question, what is it with Japanese video game manufacturers that won't sell hot products to the US when there's an obvious desire for them? Nintendo and Sony have done this at times as well.

Observations, and question answering to follow:

Music is subjective, so everyone's going to have a difference of opinion on it. I, personally, can't stand the saccharine music on DDR as much as the wider variety in types of music that Pump has. Granted, if you don't like K-pop, latin, or Banya's use of the same samples in every song they make, I can see why someone could hate it. That's why there's different dance games.

As far as pad layout is concerned; to me, 5 panels seems more natural. I don't know why that is (maybe because I started on Pump, and didn't get on a DDR machine until a half a year later). All I know is, doubles is a lot more intuitive to me on Pump (not to mention costing only one credit... :) since hardly anyone turns on joint premium...).

As for latest version, it's Exceed. Exceed 2 is due, I think, in January.

D&B has a specific deal with Andamiro which covers most all of their establishments (except for one Dallas, and one California location which both have DDR). Andamiro gives them a discount on group purchases on equipment and upgrades, which is why D&B always gets the latest version (even for testing purposes... Cincy's D&B was first, along with Dallas, to test PREX2 in the US [when it was called Extra Plus], for example).

As far as the menu system goes in Exceed (which I do agree isn't well explained), blue arrows always change a selection within a menu option, red arrows always go backwards to a previous menu selection, and yellow step goes forward in selecting items. So, if you wanted to choose Dignity (and decide to pass on it because of its insane difficulty), you press a red arrow to switch 'channels' from Banya to K-Pop, then a blue arrow to go to Dignity, the yellow step to bring up the difficulties, blue steps to select difficulty, yellow step to play selected difficulty. If you don't like the difficulties and want to choose a different song, press a red arrow. That takes you back to song selection. Pressing the red arrows again switches channels (since it's the topmost menu).

If you think that is difficult, then when Exceed 2 comes out it gets worse. There will be three initial channels of 'Arcade', 'Remix', and 'Battle'. Arcade takes you to the main game mode (like mentioned above). Remix takes you to the return of Non-stop remixes (15 remixes, some returning from older machines, 2 remixes per credit). Battle takes you to the new battle mode, where there are 4 battle modes (Item, Velocity, Minesweeper, and Hybrid). Velocity changes the speed of the arrows if you steps on 'crossbones', Minesweeper is just like Stepmania's mines mode, Item combines all the different modes, and Hybrid I'm not sure what it does yet.

Confusing? :)

Chris, I have to disagree with DDR music being "saccharine." There's plenty of J-pop, but there's also a ton of techno, trance, rock, rap, etc.

Jeff, I also wonder why Konami doesn't get it together and make a real American version of DDR. Even more bizarre is that they make special versions for the UK (Dancing Stage), and a new version of that is coming out this month! Surely there are far more players in the US! DDR might be dead in Japan, but why is Konami risking losing its American fan base?

It's just so stupid.

^ The best reason anyone can gather is that there is no American arcade division of Konami. I think though, that there is a Konami of Hawaii, which could make the games for us. Europe has a Konami division, so they get Arcade games.

Personally, I think that's crap. The only reason that Konami of Tokyo doesn't make us arcade games is that they are proud of them, and don't want to screw them over with bad liscenses, thanks to the USA's legal system.

Notice how crappy the liscensed songs are in Extreme USA, then look at the AWESOME liscenses in Dancing Stage Fusion, most of which are American songs.

*Disclaimer-I don't really know too much about Europe's liscensing system, so this could be crap, but considering Europe's legal system, I assume it's easier to get them.*

When DDR was really becoming popular in the US, Konami did have a US office located in the Chicagoland area. Back in February of '03, they pulled out altogether and made Betson Enterprises (out of New Joisey) the exclusive US distributor - something Bet$on takes full advantage of. It doesn't seem very likely that we'll see any more new Konami games in this country.

Minor correction, pinkdoom:

321 STARS DJ SIMON
A DJ Amuro
A Stupid Barber Sho-T
Across the nightmare Jimmy Weckl
AM-3P KTz
BE LOVIN D-Crew
CAN'T STOP FALLIN' IN LOVE (SPEED MIX) NAOKI
CANDY★ Luv unlimited
Chihuahua 2002 DJ Bobo
Colors (for EXTREME) dj TAKA
Come Into My World Kylie Minogue
Danger! High Voltage Electric Six
Destiny lovers Kunitake Miyuki
DIVE Be For U
DYNAMITE RAVE -Down Bird Sota Mix- NAOKI
Familiar Feeling Moloko
Firefly Be For U
Freak Like Me The Sugababes
Go West Pet Shop Boys
Good Luck Basement Jaxx feat. Lisa Kakaula
Gotta Get Thru This Daniel Beddingfield
Healing Vision (Angelic mix) 2MB
HEAVEN AND EARTH POP!
I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE The Darkness
IT'S RAINING MEN (Almighty Mix) GERI HALLIWELL
Kakumei dj TAKA with NAOKI
KEEP ON MOVIN' N.M.R.
Kids In America Kim Wilde
La Senorita CAPTAIN. T
La Senorita Virtual 2MB
MAKE IT BETTER MITSU-O!
MAKE IT BETTER (SO-REAL MIX) MITSU-O!
Mickey Toni Basil
Move Your Feet Junior Senior
OK Big Brovaz
ORION .78 (civilization mix) 2MB
PARANOiA MAX (DIRTY MIX) 190
PARANOiA survivor 270
Promises Kylie Minogue
Rappers Delight Sugar Hill Gang
SEXIEST MAN IN JAMAICA Mint Royale (feat. Prince Buster)
SOMEBODY LIKE YOU Atomic Kitten
STILL IN MY HEART NAOKI
Sunlight DJ Sammy
Superstar Jamelia
sync (EXTREME version) OutPhase
Tomorrow Perfume dj TAKA
TRIP MACHINE DE-SIRE
TRIP MACHINE (luv mix) 2MB
Try 2 Luv. U S.F.M.P.
un deux trois SDMS
Xenon Mr. T
You're Not Here Heather
Your Rain (Rage Mix) Akira Yamaoka feat. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn

...is the songlist, and out of that list only three of the artists/songs are American licenses, and out of those three, only two (Toni Basil's 'Mickey', Sugar Hill Gang 'Rappers Delight') are American artists with songs that had to be licensed from America for use (the other being Lisa Kekaula, but she worked with Basement Jaxx [British], so that doesn't count.).

All of the other songs are done by European artists (or are Konami songs, which I'm not counting) with licenses originally made in their respective home countries first (IE Kylie Minogue's licenses are Austrailian, DJ Sammy's are Spanish, Pet Shop Boys are British, etc.) since their albums came out in those countries before hitting the US. US Labels then give permission when the records hit these shores for their use in this country (which is why Pet Shop Boys and Kylie can be used here too...).

If I had to make a more educated guess about how Konami in America gets their licenses, I'd say they must have a deal with Robbins Entertainment group (www.robbinsent.com), for most of their artists properties have become DDR fodder (Ian Van Dahl, DJ Sammy, Lasgo, etc.).

Maybe I'm just mad that I don't get to play 'Good Luck' and 'Sexiest Man In Jamaica' :( ... Damn, I want a Basement Jaxx or Mint Royale track on an American release.

At least on Ultramix 2 I'll get Kreo's 'Burn For You' and Jason Nivens/Holly James 'I'm In Heaven'... that's a plus. *** Edited 11/18/2004 4:51:17 AM UTC by Chris Rettig***