Michael Jackson: The Experience

What a truly disappointing game. The promise and potential of the title as well as the source material itself (some of the most exciting and truly unique choreography ever) made this game something I was genuinely excited about.

Seeing limited versions on other platforms and then experiencing the innovation of Dance Central on the Kinect, this made the this version seem like the absolute perfect fit for the title. At best, the Wii version for example still involves some very limited tracking, while the Kinect version promises to track your whole body and furthermore actually put you into the game itself (providing a projection of the player instead of an avatar). As such I awaited this release with baited breath. But simply put, the game cannot hold a candle to Dance Central and worse still does no justice whatsoever to the source material.

Choreography here is shockingly poor, basically you are asked to pose in order, following backing dance routines rather than trying to emulate Jackson himself in any capacity. Furthermore the difficulty allows for absolutely no learning curve or indeed progression, given that songs have a set difficulty that cannot be changed. The genius of Dance Central is to offer a truly fluid choreography which flows from move to move and that develops from easy to harder to hardest. As such moves remain fluid at every difficulty and yet are elaborated upon as you progress. In this game however, each song has only a few options (dance, dance and sing, "performance" for the most part, though less in some cases) and each option has just a singular and set difficulty. This could be simply irritating if the choreography itself were fluid or in any way did service to the original, but instead it is stiff and simply amounts to striking poses in order with no flow between. And then even when I was making mistakes moving from one pose to another, the tracking still said I was doing well if I managed to approximate a "pose" (even if my arms and legs were opposite to what was required) - even on the 5 star performance difficulty.

This game simply feels lazy. There is so much the game designers could have drawn from to create a full range of dance difficulties and options - and Dance Central shows just how to do it. Perhaps the most clear indication of this is that the dance-only option on most songs mean you pose along to certain sections of the track and then simply stop when the singing parts would be if you were doing them. This is just unforgivable. I was standing there for half of some songs. Even if no choreography could have been introduced, a free-form option could have been provided (like Dance Central).

It makes me simply wish that the Jackson tracks would be made available on Dance Central. A real disappointment.

I had NO hopes of this game- I just wanted to try it for the completeness of judging every Kinect title on its own merits, without the partisan prejudice of others.

I loved it. I AM NOT a Jackson fan, and to say that it was really great fun must prove something! I've tried all the other Kinect dance games and been very unimpressed to date (the only one I liked was Zumba Fitness, which even with an early patch crashed repeatedly like an Airbus). This went through the songs in full, and had a separate, if not exhaustive dance learning section for the song I chose. The video performance was a little more involved, with some helpful six foot zombies bouncing around behind my slightly low res avatar.

It's Ubisoft again- who produced the slightly flaky, but best of breed early fitness game, Your Shape Fitness Evolved. However the Kinect game compares to the remote shaking Wii version or to the original gyrating moves in the real music videos- I don't CARE- THIS IS REALLY GOOD FUN! So far very few Kinect titles have made it past the rental stage, but this has to be one of them.

Destined to become a hit with ex Philippine prison inmates, I'm sure.

Now unless you are a HUGE Mj fan then this is the game for you.

The graphics are amazing the game is amazing what more can i say? Not many games let you listen to the whole track of a song and this does. It's also a great workout, every time i do this i end up feeling like i have been to the gym, and that's great because who enjoys going to the gym? Well some people probably do but the point I'm making is if you want a good workout then this is great because you get so lost into trying to get the stars on the game...let me explain..throughout the track every move is counted, by the timing and the accuracy and is built up into points and goes to the top left of the screen and turns into stars out of 5. Back onto the workout side of things I've sided away from my workout DVDs and turned to this, i love MJ and for this game to have been brought out is amazing, never could i do the moves on my own (although attempted and failed) this is a little bit of a tutor to some of his moves, OK it's not bang on most of the time, but hey who cares! You don't realise how much work your putting in! :)

The game consists of the stage surrounded by fans and your silhouette, you also have backing dancers to go with the hype. (you can use the dancers to judge your next move or what you need to do) to the right of the screen at the bottom you get your move cards, OK i will whole heartily admit that you can't see them very well but the more you play the tracks, the more you get used to them, (I've learnt the whole of the thriller song already so i know what's coming just need the cards to remind me!)]

You have a choice of modes, you can practice the dance in steps before you try the full song, or you can go straight in and just dance, your other option is to sing and dance and that is very trying in itself.....but still fun! We do not have a proper xbox mic atm but we are using our headsets at the moment it's for one of us to sit and sing while one of us dances. lol!

All in all i find this game to be an enjoyable experience and a privilege to step in the "king"'s footsteps. It's that enjoyable that even my nearly 2 year old joins in the fun! The kinect is a truly fantastic piece of technology that makes a person able to dance without a controller or something in your hand and it is definitely something remarkable in itself.