| Ez2Dancer | |
|---|---|
An EZ2Dancer cabinet located in the Philippines |
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| Developer(s) | Amuseworld |
| Genre(s) | Music |
EZ2Dancer is a series of dance video games developed by the Korean video game company Amuseworld. The gameplay of the series is similar to other dance simulation games, but unlike most games of their genre, EZ2Dancer incorporates both hand sensors and foot sensors into gameplay.
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The core gameplay involves staying in sync to a dance routine presented to the selected song, these routines involve stepping on three directional panels arranged in a circle in up-left, up-right, and down positions, and breaking beams between a set of two infrared hand sensors directly in front of the player. Players receive a judgement on each command, and some versions incorporate notes that must be held for their duration. After the song is completed, a score and rank are generated.
The series uses 4 common difficulty levels; "Easy" mode, "Hard" mode, "Club" mode (which uses both pads and sensor sets), and "Real" mode (which adds the need to use the lower hand sensors for actions alongside just the top ones).
Released September 2000 in Korea and early 2001 in England. Notable songs include "Rule of Game" by Goofy, "Wah" by Lee Jung Hyun, "First Love" by Clon, "Pierrot" by Lee Hyun Do and D.Bace, "Make Love" by NRG, "Vision" by Yoo Seung Jun, "Precious Love" by Park Ji Yoon and "Southwest Cadillac", an in-house remixed track from EZ2DJ.
Released January 2001 in Korea and sometime during summer (May?) 2001 in England. Added new in-house songs "Appeal (Acid Pop)" from EZ2DJ and various K-Pop tunes.
Released in May 2002 in England. Unlicensed songs included "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, "Uncle John from Jamaica" by Vengaboys and "Reach" by S Club 7. The backgrounds from previous Korean mixes were kept.
Released April 2003 in England. What is special about this mix is that after the backlash of complaints about the UK Move's debatably poor selection of songs from the dance game community, David Swei, the European marketing director of Amuseworld, stepped in. Vykkye Nye, who worked as a PR girl for Amuseworld in the UK, used an online poll asking the (now defunct) Dancegames.com's site members to submit their favourite songs for use on the New UK Move. K-Pop was suggested but David was adamant that they use only English songs for the new mix. However, "Get Ready" By Perry & YG Family made it in as despite the song being in Korean, it uses an English chorus. The final songs were selected and the mix was released.
Amuseworld released EZ2Dancer SuperChina in 2004 as its Chinese release [aside from EZ2Dancer UKMove, which China also received]. It has the songs from EZ2Dancer 2ndMove plus new songs from Mandarin-pop artists including Jolin Tsai, Leon Lai, and Kelly Chen. It also has a few new songs from Korean artists; namely, from Yoo Seung Jun, S#arp, Jon Jun Hyon, and Clon.
SuperChina's Real Mode is different from 2ndMove as 2ndMove uses courses. A set of songs is played and needs to be accomplished to complete the mission.
Real Mode in SuperChina is a normal mode where you need to finish the song to proceed with the next stage.
SuperChina is said to be much more difficult in Real Mode as it uses most of the sensors and the step arrows at the same time. Numerous jumps were also observed on RealMode.
Three ez2Dancer SuperChina were seen in the Philippines, first one was seen on Isetann Cinerama Recto Avenue, Manila but after a few months it shutoff its operation. Second SuperChina machine was confirmed on SM Supercenter Molino, Cavite under Tom's World Amusement. This was also found in Tom's world SM Southmall in Las Piñas. As of 2010, both machines were not transferred to any location in the country, therefore both might have been shelved elsewhere.
A SuperChina machine, as of 2010, is still functional. Currently located at Ever Gotesco Manila Plaza Recto Avenue, Manila which was actually near where the first ez2Dancer SuperChina machine was seen. Confirmed as the third machine as both were released during 2007.
Two ez2Dance 2ndMove cabinets are still functional though. One currently located at PureGold Monumento, Caloocan City which was first situated to a nearby mall, Ever Gotesco Grand Central, then transferred to Robinsons Galleria Ortigas Avenue, Quezon City before it was replaced by Pump It Up NX2: Next Xenesis. The other machine is currently at TriNoma, EDSA, North Avenue, Quezon City as it was first located at Timezone Glorietta 2, Ayala Avenue, Makati City. The move was caused by the 2007 Glorietta explosion forcing Timezone to transfer all of their arcade machines on to other sites.
Superchina was in Funland arcade, London Trocadero (Piccadilly Circus) between September 2005 to July 2007, after which it was replaced by Pump It Up NX. The machine was sent back to the distributors and it's new location is unknown. This was the only known SuperChina cabinet in the UK.
An EZ2Dancer UK Move Special Edition is currently in Grants Cinema in East Croydon. (Last checked April 2011)
EZ2Dancer can be simulated by StepMania although no EZ2Dancer-style controllers are available for the PC, its stepfiles can be downloaded free at http://www.ez2dance.com, Registration is needed to access their exclusive download area (The site language is in Chinese-Traditional). Site no longer active.
Followers of EZ2Dancer have long awaited the release of the next version, as UK Move Special Edition and SuperChina were the last known releases. AmuseWorld have been focused on their EZ2DJ series, however on the 10th July 2007 Konami won a patent infringement suit claiming that EZ2DJ was too similar to Beatmania. This has effectively made Amuseworld bankrupt. Although EZ2Dancer 3rd Mix was available to buy on channelbeat.com in late 2005, this turned out to be a spelling error.