When the New Year rolled around, I began looking for a moderate exercise activity that would fit my limited time availability and my desire to avoid the drudgery of weight lifting or running. (My opinion, your mileage my vary.) In the past, a couple of the developers I had worked with lost quite a bit of weight by playing Dance Dance Revolution, and they seemed to enjoy it a great deal. When I shared this idea with my children, they expressed a desire to try out the dancing games that were available for the consoles. This sounded like an interesting way to get some aerobic activity into my otherwise anaerobic life, so we decided to give it a try. The first challenge was selecting a dancing game, but since our Nintendo GameCube has a limited selection of dancing titles, we quickly determined that Dance Dance Revolution MARIO was the title to get to begin our experiment in electronic dancing. That decision behind us, we learned the most critical thing about the dancing games: without a good dance pad, it doesn't matter how good the game is or is not.
Dance Dance Revolution MARIO comes with a thin, plastic-coated dance pad that functions and lets you try the game. But if you are going to spend any amount of consistent time playing these games and you hope to incorporate them into your life as a form of exercise as I have, then you'll want to invest the extra money into upgrading your dance pad. After researching with friends and the Internet, I bought the Ignition 3.0 Dance Pad (multi-platform edition) from RedOctane.
This dance pad is in a different league than the default pad that came with the DDR MARIO game. The Ignition pad is composed of six half-inch thick puzzle piece-like pads that interlock to become the base for the very durable electronics-containing sleeve that you zipper around the padding. The end result is a rugged dance pad that cushions the shock while dancing.
It takes about 5 minutes to put the pad together out of the box. The pad pieces are each numbered and my six-year old managed to get them together without a problem. If you are following the printed instructions, steps 1-4 explain how to put together the 6-piece puzzle, step 5 is unzip, and step 6 is zip.
The Ignition pad is a multi-platform supporting pad, which means that it is designed to work with the Playstation 2, Xbox, PC, or PSOne. Since I wished to use it with my Nintendo GameCube, I also purchased a Universal PS/PS2 Controller Adapter from RedOctane. This simple device is plugged into the pad and then into the GameCube and allows the pad to control the DDR MARIO game on the GameCube. The only downside in this is that the conversion isn't 100 percent accurate, with the Start and Back/Select not working and the A/B, X/Y functionality being reversed. I decided to try it out on the PS2 just to be sure this was a problem with the adapter, not the pad itself. While playing on the PS2, there were no problems at all with all of the functionality being mapped correctly.
Once you have the Ignition pad assembled, plugged in, and ready to play, you'll find out why this pad is so great to use. The bottom of the pad allows us to dance on carpet without much slippage and the foam padding inserts have meant that the carpet hasn't seen any discernible wearing after a steady 3 months of use. We've also used it on a tile floor, and again, the bottom of the pad holds well on the tile and the inserts absorb the impact of dancing on a tile floor. The instructions are very careful to warn you to never dance on a slippery surface, and I agree. When we tried the original pad that came with our game, it was very slippery on tile, and also moved a lot more on carpet than the Ignition pad.
Storage could be an issue. If you don't set up your dancing area in a play room, but instead have it set up in the center of your family room as I do, then you are faced with having to find an aesthetically pleasing place to store your Ignition pads when you are not dancing. I've found that sliding them on-edge behind the bookcase works well. I'm not certain that any color combination would make a dance pad aesthetically pleasing and allow them to be kept in-place between dance sessions, but even as color impaired as I've been told I am, I know that orange, black, red, yellow, lime-green, and blue don't make a good family room centerpiece.
The RedOctane Ignition Pad 3.0 lists for $109.99 online but can be found for $79.99. The Universal Controller Adapter is available for $14.99.
Oh, and did the attempt to integrate the exercise through dancing work? I've lost 24 pounds since I started using the Ignition pad and Dance Dance Revolution MARIO. My children are always happy to dance with me and think it is great fun. I imagine I'll keep doing this a couple times a week as long as I enjoy it. I'm going to need some new games to keep me entertained but I don't think I'll need a new game pad for a long time to come.
I have 2 children am married, live in Arizona and work too much. I've played games since I was born and have played electronic games since they've existed and am very hopeful for their future.