Jared Rea

Everyone loves to hate lists and so when the GameTap elders asked me to put together one for the greatest rhythm games of all time, I decided to take it seriously. I joked that in my quest for the definitive list, I had assembled the “Council of Elrond” of rhythm gaming afficinados. Between the lot of us, we could boast nearly 60 years of play and knowledge of this single, young genre.

Shit got real and for the most part, people really appreciated it, though tons of people disagreed. Most of the outrage was over the lack of PaRappa the Rapper, which I can understand, but if you’re going for quality something like that really can’t make the cut regardless of how much I adore it myself. And for however controversial it was to hand the top honor to Rock Band only a month after its release, I stand by it, only I’d like to attach the number two.

For the record, I fought like hell to keep Bust a Move off the list, only because I think nostalgia is a bitch. Still, in the end, everyone agreed that it deserved a spot on the list, a low one at that.

I’m tossing this back online as my Pop’n Music relapse has reminded me of it and also because GameTap no longer exists, so neither does this article. The name “No Doubt, Get Loud!” is a reference to a Beatmania IIDX track, but really, it was just me giving the middle finger to Google for the sake of something catchy. Onwards!

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While visiting my parents back home this weekend, I uncovered some truly horrifying photos. I was on the hunt for some ancient hard drives of mine that I left behind but what I found was a stash of Kodak envelopes, stuffed with pictures from early years of the Dance Dance Revolution tournament scene which I was a part of. Yes, I was a very sick child.

The pictures go back as early as 1999 when I first discovered Dance Dance Revolution and end in 2001 which is apparently when I got a digital camera. So aside from the obvious popularity (in California, anyway), what’s changed? Now days, freestyle play no longer exists with people only playing the game for high scores. Heck, tournaments don’t even really exist. For the most part, DDR is dead with only the home releases garnering any type of success and it’s not like you’re going to be reading about those anyway.

Check out the set for some ancient Dance Dancing and I’ve embedded the slideshow after the break.

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