Just Dance? 3?

Over this past weekend my family and I went to my niece's birthday party.  I'm clueless when it comes to shopping for other kids so I asked my sister what we should bring for her daughter's birthday present.  I was told that my niece (who just turned 5) loves dancing games and Just Dance 3 was just released for the Wii and she really, really wants it.

After the party was over, we went back to my sister's house and my boys played Just Dance 3 with their cousins.  It was hysterical watching my poor, rhythmless boys jumping around dancing.  Munchkin #1 danced to Kung Fu Fighting over and over and over.  The kids LOVED the game so much that today Prince Charming and I popped in to Game Stop and picked up Just Dance 3 for our XBox Kinect. Apparently it's the first "Just Dance" title that's available for Kinect.  The first two were only for the Wii console. 

I was really surprised.  The game has a huge amount of music by the original artists (or the original cover artists for some remakes...) in multiple genres. I feared it was going to be all current hip hop and dance stuff and that I'd have to screen for lyrical content before I could freely let the kids play.  So far we've heard Kiss, Janelle Monae, Laura Bell Bundy, The Pointer Sisters and a song from The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Weird!  But so much fun!

The game is really easy to play too.  It's basically (according to Prince Charming) "washed-out albino neon people" dancing in front of a plain background and you mimic what they're doing, as they're doing it,  as if you're looking in a mirror.  The game tracks your movement with the Kinect camera and tells you if you're doing okay, good or perfect and somehow or another, you score stars.  I need to figure this out a little better- I let the kids set everything up.  For all I know, they were in practice mode or something.

It looks so easy.  I had to get in on the dancing and holy COW!  I danced to three songs and was sweating like crazy.  This game really is quite the workout!  Apparently, the creators knew that because the game logs something called "Sweat Points" and I have a feeling it's just how many calories I burned while jumping all over my living room, making my bookshelves and all the stuff on them rattle and shake.

This could be a nifty little workout for me, that I can do with my boys!  I need to move around more and Jillian is great, but not as much fun as dancing to Sugar Hill Gang's Apache like the dude in that Evolution of Dance video. (It's at about 3:50, if you're looking!) How funny would it be to get the kids to memorize a dance routine for the wedding?

So after one hour of play, I highly recommend Just Dance 3 for the Kinect as a viable and fun workout tool!