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IGN Review of Michael Jackson The Experience
During my sophomore year of college, I distinctly remember watching Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" music video for the first time. I kept it on repeat for hours. As was the case with many people before me, watching Michael dance was an incredible experience. It marked a turning point in my life where my interest in dance began to grow. Though I still have much to learn, Michael Jackson's brilliant work was an important building block for me. You could imagine, then, that Ubisoft's unveiling of Michael Jackson: The Experience at E3 2010 got me excited.
Michael Jackson: The Experience is a dance game meant to highlight Michael's astounding music and dancing. The music alone will be a huge draw for plenty of Wii owners out there, but I can tell prospective buyers right now to hold on to their money. Michael Jackson: The Experience for the Nintendo Wii is a tremendous disappointment. This isn't the immersive dance experience people will expect.
Things start off with a barebones interface that has little structure to it. There are more than 20 songs available in Michael Jackson: The Experience, and each song has its own routine that's based on Michael's original choreography. But there's no progression to work through and no additional modes besides dancing with multiple players. Most of the game feels cheap and hollow compared to titles with similar dance floor offerings. But this empty feeling is, tragically, the least of Michael Jackson: The Experience's concerns.
The biggest problem with Michael Jackson: The Experience is obvious when you consider the Wii's control setup. This platform wasn't designed to read a player's entire body, so a dance game that tasks players with moving their entire body presents an inherent disconnect.
While playing Michael Jackson: The Experience, small diagrams slide up the side of the screen with images of a dance move or pose. Players are supposed to follow these cues as well as mimic the dancers on screen. But because the player's only connection with the game is a single Wii remote, the dancing boils down to waving one's hand around, as any additional movement isn't registered and vanishes into the void of missed opportunities.
When I dance to Smooth Criminal, for example, any skill I exhibit while dancing doesn't factor into my score or star ranking. This means players can wave their hands around and ignore all the other dance moves. But even performing hand motions properly will often result in a miss, which made me feel like I had almost no connection to the game at all.
For those that honestly attempt to dance with their whole body, Michael Jackson choreography is extremely difficult, and there's very little in the way of tutorials here. There are simple instructional videos that teach players specific sections of the songs, but these videos need to be unlocked, which makes very little sense. Anyone uncomfortable with dancing will not be able to follow along with Michael's moves, especially because Michael Jackson: The Experience uses video footage of real dancers superimposed on themed backgrounds.
Much to my surprise, the dance move cues I discussed above will occasionally disappear during a routine, forcing players to follow the on-screen dancer without any guidance. This startling issue echoes Michael Jackson: The Experience's overarching lack of polish and poor design choices.
Among these poor design choices are the bizarre coloring effects on the in-game characters (used to mask the fact that Michael is not actually performing on camera). Despite the effects -- which render the characters faceless -- I must give credit to all the dancers on screen. They are clearly not the problem in Michael Jackson: The Experience because their dancing is fantastic.
Lastly, it should be noted that most of the tracks in Michael Jackson: The Experience are suitable for a music game, but several of them are terrible for dancing. "Heal the World" and "The Girl Is Mine," for example, are too slow (and corny) to enjoy on the dance floor.
©2010-12-02, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Michael Jackson: The Experience is a dance game meant to highlight Michael's astounding music and dancing. The music alone will be a huge draw for plenty of Wii owners out there, but I can tell prospective buyers right now to hold on to their money. Michael Jackson: The Experience for the Nintendo Wii is a tremendous disappointment. This isn't the immersive dance experience people will expect.
Things start off with a barebones interface that has little structure to it. There are more than 20 songs available in Michael Jackson: The Experience, and each song has its own routine that's based on Michael's original choreography. But there's no progression to work through and no additional modes besides dancing with multiple players. Most of the game feels cheap and hollow compared to titles with similar dance floor offerings. But this empty feeling is, tragically, the least of Michael Jackson: The Experience's concerns.
The biggest problem with Michael Jackson: The Experience is obvious when you consider the Wii's control setup. This platform wasn't designed to read a player's entire body, so a dance game that tasks players with moving their entire body presents an inherent disconnect.
While playing Michael Jackson: The Experience, small diagrams slide up the side of the screen with images of a dance move or pose. Players are supposed to follow these cues as well as mimic the dancers on screen. But because the player's only connection with the game is a single Wii remote, the dancing boils down to waving one's hand around, as any additional movement isn't registered and vanishes into the void of missed opportunities.
When I dance to Smooth Criminal, for example, any skill I exhibit while dancing doesn't factor into my score or star ranking. This means players can wave their hands around and ignore all the other dance moves. But even performing hand motions properly will often result in a miss, which made me feel like I had almost no connection to the game at all.
For those that honestly attempt to dance with their whole body, Michael Jackson choreography is extremely difficult, and there's very little in the way of tutorials here. There are simple instructional videos that teach players specific sections of the songs, but these videos need to be unlocked, which makes very little sense. Anyone uncomfortable with dancing will not be able to follow along with Michael's moves, especially because Michael Jackson: The Experience uses video footage of real dancers superimposed on themed backgrounds.
Much to my surprise, the dance move cues I discussed above will occasionally disappear during a routine, forcing players to follow the on-screen dancer without any guidance. This startling issue echoes Michael Jackson: The Experience's overarching lack of polish and poor design choices.
Among these poor design choices are the bizarre coloring effects on the in-game characters (used to mask the fact that Michael is not actually performing on camera). Despite the effects -- which render the characters faceless -- I must give credit to all the dancers on screen. They are clearly not the problem in Michael Jackson: The Experience because their dancing is fantastic.
Lastly, it should be noted that most of the tracks in Michael Jackson: The Experience are suitable for a music game, but several of them are terrible for dancing. "Heal the World" and "The Girl Is Mine," for example, are too slow (and corny) to enjoy on the dance floor.
©2010-12-02, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved