XTango Takes The Xbox Sports Dancing

Thanks to Watch Impress for its news story covering the novel Korean Xbox game, XTango [Japanese-language link], shown at the Kentia Hall during last week's E3. The official English-language XTango webpage has more information, explaining the "new-concepted sports dance game in which there's fantastic ballroom [dancing], music, and handsome and beautiful characters." The gameplay is also sketched out: "Collaborating 1 or 2 Players fight against computer couples. 1P is the leader in couple dance, he or she inputs next 'step command' for dance motions, like as command input system of fighting games. [The] follower, 2P presses the same 'step command' right after."

Comments

Wot no violence?

[MrIrwin]

How about being able to lamp other players on the nose for eyeing up your dancing partner?

To hell with sledging........

[MrIrwin]

....this would be just the game for Tux!

Then the BSD deamon could be thrown in at random moments to spice things up a bit!

Small Market ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow I can't see "Fred Estaire Pro Ballroom" being particularly successful. Is this one of the new X-Box exclusive titles? What next , "Strictly Handbag Pro Mincer?"

Re:Small Market ?

[Alkaiser]

Seriously...you didn't see the rest of the show. The mere fact that it was original made it the most surprising game of the show.

"handsome and beautiful characters?"

[cjpez]

"handsome and beautiful characters?" Yeah, *there's* a new concept.

Who's paying to develop this? & Controls?

[mystereys]

Is this a ploy by Arthur Murray's Dance Studios to get young'ns interested in ballroom dancing? I can't imagine there is going to be much interest in this game in the arcades.

The website doesn't mention anything about controls (as far as I could see): will it be a touch sensitive pad to step on? As the phrase goes, it takes two to tango: will single players have to pretend they're holding a partner? And what about women's versus men's steps: will the player lead or will the computer?

This should be interesting...

Re:Who's paying to develop this? & Controls?

[Lemmy Caution]

This game was cool from a gameplay perspective, not just from an aesthetic one.

One player leads, the other follows. The person who leads puts in a key combo - maybe up + X, or left + Y + A, or something. Different combos cause different dance steps, and more complicated combos create more points.

The next player follows - which means she has to repeat the combination input by the first player.

So the lead needs to come up with a combination that is complicated enough to give lots of points, but not so complicated that the other player can't imitate it within the same measure.

So the lead should be a good fighting-game player, and the follower should be a good rhythm/dance game player. This is an excellent simulation of dance-as-a-communication-game, and a lot of fun. Definitely my favorite game of E3 - and the first truly killer-app for the Xbox I've found.

There is single-player mode, in which either side, it seems, is replaced by an AI, but I wouldn't see the point really. You can play with dance pads, but I don't think that would be optimal, either. This is tango, not the Cabbage Patch.

I can also see this not being too popular among gamers without significant others - I imagine a lot of the more shaky-about-their-sexuality types would freak out about playing it with their buddies. But for those who have a usually-not-interested-in-gaming partner, it's a godsend. And I suspect that you wouldn't have predicted that DDR would have been as successful in the arcades as it was, too - a romantic game that you can play with your date could be a pretty big hit.

Once again, Mike Hawk has his finger on the pulse

[Mike Hawk]

From Mike Hawk's journal dated 5/14:

First off will be the two most homosexual games of E3:
#2 DDR with EyeToy support. You dance as per previous versions of DDR, but now you are dancing with yourself on the screen. Like some lame Billy Idol. Rather an even lamer Billy Idol.
#1 Tango X. Its a tango game. You and your buddy enter button combinations together in rhythm to make the characters on the screen dance together. You dance together. The characters are touching and holding and dipping. Sometime in the future, in someone's living room, the following is bound to be exclaimed, "Dude! Get the tango game out! I want to dance with you RIGHT NOW!"

I have to say it was definitely sexy watching those two guys dance together. Highlight of E3 for me.

Re:Once again, Mike Hawk has his finger on the pul

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, some of us might play these games with people of the opposite gender. Maybe someday you'll meet one!

What part theme plays

[Crash Culligan]

I started by mentally stripping away the theme of the game itself and looking at what the game action seems to consist of. And that didn't look so bad: a sort of DDR where the pattern is dictated by one person for another person to follow. I still know nothing of the game (the site wasn't terribly descriptive about mechanics), but I could see where this is a challenging concept. It's not just pattern matching (like DDR), but coordination: how complex a pattern does the one person dare to create for the second person to follow? How complex a pattern would you lay out?

Then I mentally add the theme back in.

[Insert the sound of a dozen geese spitting up hairballs here. And never you mind how the geese ingested that much hair in the first place.]

I agree with other posters: calling this a "sports action" game is a travesty (perhaps just generic "action" game would have been better).

But more importantly, the theme (which does fit it rather well) makes it unpopular with a lot of people. One person can't play it alone, and two guys aren't going to play it together unless they're very sure of their masculinity (which eliminates most of the /. crowd, judging by the trolls). It's an original concept (apart from the versus mode in Amplitude for the PS2), but one which the theme and background of will guarantee few people will want to play. That's unfortunate.

Re:What part theme plays

[Lemmy Caution]

I actually know how to dance tango, and the theme is a big plus for me. Tango is an intense, dark, very passionate dance - and a difficult one. One dance turns strangers into lovers and lovers into foes.

In Japan and Korea, ballroom dance is already huge. Gaming couples or gamers with dates will be a big market (and one for which virtually no games exist, apart from the usual music-games that require bringing out the dance pad.)

This could be gaming as foreplay.

This was definitely my favorite game at E3. The people who are going to be turned off by the theme are already being pretty well served by the game industry - this is going to be attractive to a lot of people who aren't in the traditional target market, and may wind up getting them to get an Xbox. I'd rather it came out for the GC, personally, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Re:What part theme plays

[Quikah]

OK, but why would you play the game rather than actually going dancing?

Re:What part theme plays

[Lemmy Caution]

1. Living room not big enough for dance floor.

2. Never said I was good at tango.

It's kind of like asking why you would play Gran Turismo instead of going driving.

Re:What part theme plays

[Quikah]

There is a huge difference from driving a car and playing GT, I don't/can't drive my car 200+ mph and screwing up won't cost me thousands of $ and possibly my life.

Re:What part theme plays

[Lemmy Caution]

Applies to snowboarding, golf, football, pretty much everything that one could do in real life and can do in a game - it isn't as if the pleasures of the game are identical with the pleasures of the simulation target. (And you can go racing karts without the same risks.)

And, your protest about cost can be extended - going to a real milonga costs money, as does appropriate clothes, etc.

Re:Once again, Mike Hawk has his finger on the pul

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-Nintendo troll, journal deletion troll, armchair stock "analyst," Jap-hunter, and now fag-hunter.

You are just too cool, McDick.

Re:Once again, Mike Hawk has his finger on the pul

[Mike Hawk]

Aww, you flatter me!