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The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
If shaking your groove thing or laying your thing down is something you enjoy, you might be interested in Gamespot's Rhythm Game 10 Spot, looking at the 10 Best Rhythm games. From the article: "Some of these rhythm games never made it outside of Japan, and others require you to purchase an expensive peripheral controller, but all of the greatest rhythm games are characterized by a few elements--a noteworthy soundtrack, a unique method of interaction, and an addictive gameplay. To be truly great, the game can be responsible for pioneering the genre or merely perfecting the established formula, and whether you're using your feet, hands, or stylus to map out the beat, we guarantee that in the following 10 games, the rhythm is going to get you." Played Guitar Hero for the first time this weekend, and it is as good as everyone says it is. Highly recommended.
Though frequency is an awesome game in its own right, they fixed a lot of the awkwardness of the game with Amplitude. It's the same game, but with some of the more frustrating features removed (like tracks only being cleared until checkpoints).
Have you tried any of the more hardcore rhythm games? DDR/In the Grove are far from easy. If they aren't your style take a look at Beatmania IIDX, It's coming out in North America in march I believe, it's supposedly one of the most insane difficult rhythm games in existance. Stuff like Guitar Hero, donky conga, etc tend to be pretty tame.
REZ
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -- Voltaire
That is of course, GTA: San Andreas Hot Coffee Mod!
They didn't even mention Donkey Konga/Donkey Konga 2 or Taiko Drum Master on their list. (OK, they're on the vote thing at the end, but not mentioned in the article!) :)
Anyway, as a drummer, I was drawn to the Donkey Konga games, and liked them as much as I expected. As for TDM, I've been wanting to get it, I'm still just waiting for the funds to be available for it
I'm absolutely confounded as to why Beatmania IIDX isn't listed in there. Boasting amazing music, unbelievably challenging gameplay (telling me that it's easy would mean that you're a total liar) and it's hitting its 13th release in Japan in March. Not only that, but it hardly concentrates on "dance-friendly music" as it says in the article. Can't say I've ever seen anyone dance to Gabba or any sort of Click House. There's zero reason for it to not be on the list, especially when you have something like Samba de Amigo in there (which had very little music and almost no variation to the gameplay). Vib Ribbon doesn't deserve to be on there either. There just wasn't anything to the game to put it that far up the list. Ouendan certainly deserves recognition though. The game is amazing, with a great list of songs and great replay with its 4 different difficulties. And I'm almost offended that they'd say that early Guitar Freaks sounds better than the later installments. The earlier stuff doesn't even sound professional in comparison to some of the greater and later works in the series, not to mention how further spread the genres of music got by the 9th game (8th for Drummania).
1995? Yeah, it's 2006 now, but I don't think lots of rhythm games came out in January of '96. I guess I'm bugged by the fact that the author presents this as a common opinion, yet I've never run across people saying this before. It's not a well-known thing like the "Crash of '84" or the golden years of 2-D platform games (which I consider the NES/SNES/Genesis days).
Try Karaoke Revolution on Expert mode. :) Along with the dance pad. I guarantee you won't find that easy, and your percussionist skills won't increase your ability for that game.
Didn't all of these "rhythm games" really begin with the arcade game "Dragon's Lair"? Unlike all other video games before it, the gameplay was all about pushing the correct direction at precisely the right moment and stringing together and memorizing sequences. It was radically different from the "real time" movement of all other video games. It might not have been about "dancing", but it's a classic "rhythm game" in my opinion.
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It seems to be easily available in Europe. I own a copy and ordered a second copy a few days ago on amazon.de. They had it in stock.
The game itself it pretty cool. The story mode is a lot of fun (with plenty of minigames, like four-way mole whacking), but a bit too easy. The music is mostly well done, with some of techno-styled Mario tracks.