Domain: ddrfreak.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to ddrfreak.com.
Stories · 5
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Dance Dance Revolution Hastens Heart Attack
Thanks to TheOmahaChannel.com for its story discussing a 15-year old girl whose heart stopped while playing arcade Dance Dance Revolution. According to the piece: "[Kimber] Wilson was playing the game Dance Dance Revolution at a Bellevue arcade with a friend June 22 when she fell to the floor. The arcade owners gave her CPR, then a police officer took over. Paramedics shocked her several times with a defibrillator at the arcade to get her heart working again." The diagnosis was "hypertrophy cardiomyopathy", a genetic problem (which could have been triggered by any exercise) in which "the walls around her heart are so thick that her heart wasn't getting the signals to beat." Fortunately, Kimber was "soon... back to hanging out with her friends at the arcade", albeit with a pacemaker, commenting: "I might try Dance Dance Revolution, but I'm thinking no." -
On The Evolution Of Dance Dance Revolution
Thanks to Gaming-Age for its feature discussing the continued popularity of Konami's Dance Dance Revolution series, which starts out by noting "the DDR series now has had nearly 50 different releases, all territories figured in", and interviews Konami's Yasumi Takase about the possibility of being able to use any music CD in a DDR game ("Having access to your personal music CDs is great, but coming up with your own step data for these songs is not so easy unless you are an expert player"), before talking to female DDR player 'Lyra' about her views of female players ("We do tend to have a lot more guy players than girls, the only girls we ever get are people who either try it out once, or sluts who are trying to get a guy.") Elsewhere, DDRFreak points to an academic essay on the history of DDR (PDF link), produced for Stanford University's History Of Computer Game Design class. -
On The Evolution Of Dance Dance Revolution
Thanks to Gaming-Age for its feature discussing the continued popularity of Konami's Dance Dance Revolution series, which starts out by noting "the DDR series now has had nearly 50 different releases, all territories figured in", and interviews Konami's Yasumi Takase about the possibility of being able to use any music CD in a DDR game ("Having access to your personal music CDs is great, but coming up with your own step data for these songs is not so easy unless you are an expert player"), before talking to female DDR player 'Lyra' about her views of female players ("We do tend to have a lot more guy players than girls, the only girls we ever get are people who either try it out once, or sluts who are trying to get a guy.") Elsewhere, DDRFreak points to an academic essay on the history of DDR (PDF link), produced for Stanford University's History Of Computer Game Design class. -
Namco's Taiko Drumming Games To Debut In West
Thanks to 1UP for its news story noting that Namco's Japanese hit PlayStation 2 drumming title, Taiko No Tatsujin, is coming to the West. According to the article's translation of a Bloomberg News story: "Namco tentatively plans to localize two titles in the series (four have been released in Japan so far) with revised song selections better suited to an American audience. Its expectations of the title's success are relatively modest - Haraguchi said Namco expects to initially ship around 100,000 units - but given the success of Dance Dance Revolution in this country, it could balloon into a similar cult phenomenon." The Taiko No Tatsujin series "...has shipped two million units for PlayStation 2 in Japan so far", even with an (optional) expensive drum controller, and it seems Nintendo's previously mentioned Namco-developed conga-drum title Donkey Konga is also likely to head Stateside. -
Dance Dance Revolution World Endurance Record Broken
Thanks to GamesAreFun for the news that 17 year-old Drew Gamble has broken the Dance Dance Revolution world endurance record by continuously playing the rhythm-action arcade game for 37½ hours. According to the story: "Initially started as a joint effort with his 16 year-old friend Chris Machado at the Space Balls Arcade in the Bend River Mall [in Oregon], Gamble danced on a Dance Dance Revolution Extreme machine for twenty hours after Machado was disqualified." A report at the Bend Bugle gives more detail, as it appears that "...around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, 17½ hours into the effort, Machado unfortunately was talked by some in the crowd to try a faster-tempo song, and couldn't keep his... feet hitting the right lit arrows in sequence." Fortunately, "Gamble soldiered on by himself, sticking to the slower-tempo songs, for the slow and steady win the race."