Rhythm games are difficult to turn into a lot of fun. Let us think about it for a minute or two. The Dance Dance Revolution series has survived as long as it has because of the strong soundtracks and established rhythm. It has survived because the DDR games are kinetic! There is a connection to the music — much like Amplitude, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. While I do not have much experience with the latter two, I loved Amplitude because it had you hopping all over various tracks — bringing the songs to life! It was an awesome experience the first time I played through. And in some ways, it still is. However, I’m getting a tad distracted. There’s a new rhythm game that wants to step into a genre that some consider stuffed to the gills. This game is B-Boy, and it might make you perform the “breaking dance.”
Anyway, B-Boy stars an avatar of your creation as he (or she) climbs the ranks of break-dancing fandom. In other words, they are climbing the B-boy scene. If you’re like me, you may have no clue what a “B-boy” (or girl) is; it is a person who is completely devoted to the hip-hop culture. Though, according to my old “friend” Wikipedia, it could refer to a follower of a certain DJ or break dancing in general. Instead, B-Boy focuses on the hip-hop culture. Unfortunately, it just feels ... stereotypical. The loft with cement floors, subways, parks, the sounds of the police in the distance — just drives me nuts!
Especially now, whenever I stare at the television screen, I feel disgusted. Initially, I thought it looked rather good. My avatar moved rather decently, and the various dance moves look rather neat. One thing that did bother me is character creation (and modification). It is the simple fact that it takes a long time (20 seconds) to change a costume. Anyway, after two hours of playing, I started to notice things. The game started to look pixilated, the movements of the taunts looked even sillier than they initially did and the spectators in the background looked poorly animated. The lack of soul in the game started to get to me. Furthermore, if a character is close to a piece of furniture or something and performs an action, that body part WILL go through the furniture. Is my character dead, alive or a ghost? I do not know.
Gameplay wise, the point of the game is to hit as many beats as possible while performing various moves. So you push the shape buttons to initiate the basic moves while combing the d-pad for more “complex” movements. You’re always pushing up + up+ X, down + down + down + O, left + square, and up + up + triangle to perform special moves. There’s nothing more to it. So in essence, you are doing the same thing over and over again. And challenging plus defeating other dancers is far too easy. Just do the same moves you’ve done before.
But this is a rhythm game. So if the rhythm is solid, the rest of the game should be adequate. Unfortunately, it is a bit mixed. On the one hand, it needs to be forgiving or else no one but a gifted percussionist will be able to play. But if it is too loose, what is the point of trying to keep rhythm? You keep the beat by properly pushing either the L1 or the R1 buttons on the orange and blue lines. However, this leads us right into B-Boy’s dilemma: Sometimes it is just right with forgiveness and others times it is far too loose. And it does not seem to be consistent as you are supposed to change a move by pressing a geometry button when on the blue line. Yet, most of the time you can get away without that requirement. To make matters worse, the camera is inconsistent as well. Sometimes it is just where it needs to be. Other times, it will choose a position that has another character blocking the space. Plus, those beat signals are a tad too small for my preference.
So what about the audio? There’s not much in terms of bells and whistles, but it is OK. However, the music is the real lure — if you like hip-hop. I don’t. It offends my ears with its sonic sensibilities. So I am not really certain if the music is any “good” for the genre. Furthermore, there are very few crossover songs. You know, songs that are accessible to the average person who does not listen to the genre. Personally, I would have preferred the playlist going that route instead of the heavy hip-hop route. Also, I heard the same few songs over and over again during competitions that I quickly got sick of the soundtrack. And I did not need another reason to hate the Black Eyed Peas.
Overall, this game just bores me. There’s nothing to it after the music is turned off and the image leaves the screen. There is nothing to bring anyone back into its world. My mom had the opportunity to see about 15 minutes of gameplay one day. She thought that it looked like it was waiting for the zombies to attack. Actually, that sounds like a decent game. Dance to keep and/or destroy the zombie horde. (Wait. That’s my idea. Don’t use it!)
Anyway, B-Boy is not an easy game to recommend to anyone. At first, I had some fun with it. But the more I played it, the less I liked. Rhythm fans will probably be discontent with it, and hip-hop fans will probably like the music but not the dancing. So feel free to rent it, but it probably will not go any further than that. The game just feels flat — nothing more, nothing less.
