News - In The Groove for PS2 announced
Posted by
Ron Kimberly
at 02:20:09 AM EST on 3.6.2005.
A couple of weeks ago we
reported that
Red Octane intended to begin publishing video games. At the time we had no information on possible projects, but our resident bemani fan Josh Freund went with the semi-obvious speculation that their first project would be a rhythm game of some sorts. He was right.
On March 1st Red Octane announced that they have reached an exclusive publishing agreement with Roxor Games to publish In The Groove for Playstation 2. The Playstation 2 incarnation will offer 5 game modes: dance, battle, marathon, and fitness. In The Groove also promises to offer the following features:
-- Over 70 brand new songs from proven talent and new independent
artists, covering a wide variety of genres.
-- Over 550 new step patterns from step artists in the dance community.
-- 50+ modifier options, including 20+ new arrow modifiers for creative
challenges.
-- 3 styles of play: One Player, Two Player, or Double-Pad.
-- Up to 5 difficulty levels per song to accommodate all players from
beginners to experts.
-- Innovations in step choreography - mines, hands, and quads - will
have you making new kinds of moves.
No release date was listed in the press release, so we will be certain to update as soon as more info is revealed.
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thekow 3.6.2005 at 05:30:51 PM
I used to be into the Bemani scene (host/mod for DDRMX, mod at DDRFreak) and I know tons of people who s*** themselves silly when people used "Bemani" to describe PIU, haha. Whatever floats your boats. I haven't been around the scene for a good year and a half, though.
So it shocks me that ITG is based off of StepMania. It looks like s***! SM was awesome, why would the desecrate it.
Mines seems interesting, and I'm very very interested in the new E-rotic stuff, but it's still not enough to get me interested. Right now it's a poorly done iteration of the DDR series.
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cutriss 3.6.2005 at 03:02:29 PM
Bemani may be Konami's mark for their "music simulation series", but the Bemani fan community uses it almost universally to describe rhythm games. And ITG is a lot closer to DDR than PIU is, so it just kinda falls in line.
If you're a fan of Stepmania, then you probably already know what's coming with In The Groove (which is built using Stepmania). Stepmania/In The Groove features a *huge* amount of modifiers for songs which can definitely shake things up and provide more playability as time goes on. We're not just talking about unlocking x0.5, x0.25, Brake, and Wave here.
ITG also "innovates" some of PIU's step patterns by reintroducing three- and four-panel jumps, refered to as Hands and Quads respectively. DDR had this in its first incarnation, but Konami felt it was too dangerous to have players use their hands and such in quick motions, and it also kinda takes away from the "stepping" aspect of the game. ITG also has mines, which are a new arrow type - basically, if you have your foot on a panel when the mine crosses it, then it'll explode and you'll lose some of your dance gauge.
ITG also has music from veteran DDR licensed artists like Missing Heart and fan-favorite E-Rotic, which players have been clamoring for some time.
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thekow 3.6.2005 at 01:51:44 PM
Drakken, "bemani" is Konami's term for their line of games, not all music games in general. PIU and this knockoff are most certainly not Bemani.
The screen shots I've seen for this look like a poorly-made ripoff of DDR... Untill I see some significant details about new features I'll continue to ignore this.
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phoenicks 3.6.2005 at 11:37:33 AM
it's almost too bad that Konami has no trademark on the DDR formula and, thus, can't file suit!
all of these clones, from the video games to those toy store kid mat games, are going to do nothing but kill the craze much like the Razor Scooter, Tamagotchi, the 'free-roaming' game, .com's, and countless other fads that made it big and were cloned/ripped off by American companies looking to make the quick buck!
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kiyoshi meka 3.6.2005 at 09:43:54 AM
I want an american version of Pop'n music.
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drakken 3.6.2005 at 02:23:22 AM
I'm very happy. First, Pump It Up: Exceed, and now this. It's nice to see more bemani games on their way to home consoles.
Why am I still up? I have no idea. I'm going to sleep now.
digg this story!
