Dance Central 2: Review and Dance Central Import Tutorial

Written by Ryan Johnson (RyanDJ) Tuesday, 25 October 2011 10:00

Dance Central 2 came out today, to the joy of many a Kinect owner. The first Dance Central was one of the most praised release titles, looking very polished and showing people that Kinect was more than just a Wii with no controllers. First impressions of the sequel are amazing, as "more of the same" would have been enough, here they have added a story mode of sorts and the ability to play two player simultaneously.

My only issue with Dance Central 2 is how to download the original Dance Central's songs into the new game. I am sure detailed reading of fine print around all of the advertisements would have made this a no-brainer, but if I had this problem, I'm sure someone else did as well, therefore I am writing this document up.

The original songs are NOT accessible through the main Xbox store. You must have a code, either from a preorder receipt (at participating retailers) or from the back of your original Dance Central manual. The new manual specifically states that you have to have this code to get the download (a perk of buying new as well as retaining your collection). This code is then entered via the options menu IN GAME on Dance Central 2.

After this code is entered, you can download the original tracks for 400 Microsoft Points. Some may be confused about this (as I was), because only participating retailers offered this incentive. I had read about the free import on the Xbox Dashboard a week or so ago. We have a local game store that I try to support, so I preordered there. He assumed it would be packaged with the game, but it was not. (By the way, he's going above and beyond and out of his way to try to talk to his suppliers to see if he can make it right, and if not, he's going to give me store credit, so if you live in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, try out Monster Games in Broadway!) So if you did order from a particular store, there should be a 400 MSP code on your receipt. Input that to get a "free" download. Might be best to put in that code first, before you start the rest. If you didn't get those points, the game comes packaged with 240 points to download songs anyway, so you're really just $2 away from the entire old catalog being in your system.

From the preliminary playing of the game, I have to say I'm impressed. New characters are just as interesting as the old ones. I already know characters' names, thanks to the story mode and interface. Honestly, in the last one, they were just generic dance dudes. Now, I feel an attachment to a character. Multiplayer mode is much improved, thanks to the ability to dance simultaneously. I feel one of the best improvements is the voice recognition system. Instead of wading through a 100 song playlist (if you import and have a few downloads), you can just say "Xbox! Dance!" and go into a voice menu. You can't scroll here, but once you know the set list, you can say "song: _____" and go straight to it, change the mode and difficulty, and get your groove on.

99% of the reviews out there boil down to this sentence: if you liked the first game, get the second. It's more of what you already know you want. Hopefully, this tutorial helped you clear up the Dance Central 1 downloads. All original DLC from Dance Central should have imported over by default, and there is a sale on the DLC songs on Xbox now through November 5th. Dance Central 2 is available on Amazon for roughly $50.