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When Pump It Up: Exceed arrived on my desk, I have to admit, I laughed. Visions of goofy kids stomping around on the DDR machines at the local arcade were the first thing that popped into my head. Many, many hours later, I’m hooked. I’ll still never play one in a public place, but the one I have at home is going to see some constant use.

If you’re reading this review, you probably already know more about Pump It Up than I did when I opened the box. This is how it works, though, for the few of you that aren’t aware: Pump It Up is a part of the dance game craze that has hit the gaming industry over the past few years. The game comes bundled with a dance pad that you put down on your floor (be careful if it’s carpeted), and that becomes your controller. All menu selections can be done via extra navigational buttons on the pad. It’s not a very good way to handle the menu system, since you’ll be walking all around the pad to get to where you want to be, but I see how this was a necessary evil.

During play, you select one of the 100+ songs you want to dance to. From here, the game itself starts: Arrows corresponding with images on the dance pad will begin to scroll up the screen, more often than not, to the beat of the song. Step in time with these arrows as they get to the top of the screen. The desired effect is that you end up dancing with the arrows on the screen while enjoying the music. Such an effect was not quite reached during my first 10 minutes with the game. I was a total klutz. After a little practice, though, I’ve turned out to be pretty good at the game.

Your timing has to be pretty good when stepping in time with the arrows. If your timing is off, you’ll get ‘bad’, or possibly even a full ‘miss’. Better timing will gain you ‘good’, ‘great’ and ‘perfect’. The better your timing when hitting the arrows, the higher your score will be at the end of the song.

Many are wondering what makes Pump It Up any different than the insanely popular DDR series, and to my own personal surprise, there’s quite a bit. The arrows, for starters, are on angles. In DDR, you have standard up, down, left, right, but in PIU, you have upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right. It doesn’t seem like a big difference, but it feels more natural (having since played a DDR game now). The other addition is the fifth button. This button is in the center of the pad. Again, it doesn’t seem like a huge addition, but that extra button opens up many more possibilities for dance moves while playing. They could have easily made the fifth button a quick-fix gimmick, but its addition really helps it set itself apart from DDR.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to play Pump It Up, or even a person that usually likes video games, for that matter. It’s even better when you have a friend to play with, or to take turns with. Playing competitively is a simple one on one to see who can end the song with more points, very simple, yet very entertaining.

PUI has a few modes available for play: Arcade, Home and Sudden Death. Arcade mode is the main mode you’ll play in order to unlock songs for play in Home mode. When you play a song in Arcade mode, if it’s locked in Home mode, then it will become available for play in that mode, so long as you can manage a D ranking or higher. The rankings you get correspond directly with your points made during a song. Home mode is basically the ‘casual’ version of Arcade, where you get to play the songs you have unlocked from Arcade in a non-competitive sort of fashion. Sudden Death is the hardcore mode of the game. In Sudden Death, if you miss one step, the song ends and you lose. The game starts you off with a small selection of songs, and as you beat those, it unlocks progressively harder songs. This is really one of the best ways to improve your skill in the game, since it demands near perfection on the part of the player.

The song list in the game is widely varied. There are a few recognizable tracks from Crystal Method, Elvis feat. Junkie XL, Earth Wind and Fire, Stereogram, and the Sugar Hill Gang. Other tracks come from Banya, the PIU band, as well as a ton of other artists that I’ve never heard of in my life. That’s okay, though. With a list of 101 songs (on the PS2 version), you’re bound to find something that suites your personal taste.

The visuals that accompany the songs range from artistic to outright messed up. The songs from Stereogram, Elvis, and Crystal Method all feature their respective music videos, while the rest are accompanied by bizarre animation, from flash-like cartoons to Japanese anime characters dancing around, to random, crazy deigns and color flashes. There’s really no common theme, and I can’t even say that the videos often have anything to do with the songs playing, but what I can say is, you’ll usually be paying too much attention to the flying arrows to pay any attention to the video anyway. If you’re just watching, though, some of the videos are pretty amusing.

I came into Pump It Up with a very cynical attitude. What the game has managed to do is give my opinion a complete 180. I absolutely love Pump It Up: Exceed. It’s entertainment that anyone in your house can enjoy, no matter their age (save for maybe your little ol’ granny). The music is varied, the experience is great. If you have any interest at all in dancing games, do yourself a favor: don’t miss out on what Pump It Up has to bring to the table.