Game Boy Advance

Britney's Dance Beat

Many people will attempt to write off Dance Beat as a true game. That's not entirely fair to the game itself. It's short and definitely geared more as a memento to Britney fans than anyone else. I, on the other hand, wanted to like this game a lot. I think rhythm and dance titles on a handheld format are an excellent idea as it introduces something more than mindless arcade action. Unfortunately, there is a real art in crafting these types of games. In Dance Dance Revolution, even the toughest music titles appear to have some correlation to the music itself and that, I think, is the key to a successful rhythm and dance title. Since this ingredient is missing from Dance Beat, it's hard to recommend this to anyone other than Britney fans. Like her cinematic debut, Dance Beat relies too much on its namesake. Hopefully, more suitable material will come to fore, like (in my fantasies) perhaps a Kylie Minogue rhythm and dance.

Britney's Dance Beat for the Game Boy Advance is a decent music-inspired video game, but it's definitely less about music and rhythm than it is a platform to promote Britney Spears herself.

Dance Beat's graphics are better than its sound, though everything has a dull orange cast to it (judging from backlit screenshots the orange cast is more due to the GBA's lighting issues than the colors used). The animations are nice and detailed, and it's obvious that there was extensive motion capturing. Britney dancing looks like Britney dancing, so that's a good thing. One problem is that the A-button prompt is red and the B-button prompt is sort of an orange-yellow. It's easy to mistake the two and that hurts your score.

I actually enjoy playing Dance Dance Revolution on the PlayStation, because it's such a physical game that gets you in the action. But when you reduce that design into control presses, the game isn't exactly a lot of fun...and that's exactly the problem with Britney's Dance Beat. Pressing A and B at the right time during a song might be challenging, but it's not a whole lot of fun. And at least with Dance Dance Revolution you get a nice grab-bag of tunes...not everyone can stand the sodapop-sugary-sweet Britney Spears formula.

Alors que tout semble lui réussir et après son récent succès au cinéma, la jeune Spears fait un véritable bide sur Gameboy Advance. D’une durée de vie extrêmement limitée et d’une réalisation plutôt médiocre, le nouveau soft musical édité par THQ ne laissera pas ses traces dans l’histoire du jeu vidéo.