Dance UK (PS2)

Dance:UK PS2 (English)

The latest dance-em-up to vie for Konami's bemani crown is Dance: UK and its key strategy in its attempt to do this appears in the form of an array of branded accessories, geared towards enhancing the experience of prancing around looking daft in your living room. As such, Big Ben Interactive's accessory brand, 4Gamers, is releasing an 8-way dance mat, a mini 2.1 dance sound system and a wireless microphone headset alongside the game, allowing you to look just like Britney while you play.

The game follows the usual formula of pressing the right button - or, indeed, stepping on the right part of the mat - in time with hip and funky soundtracks. Dance: UK comes complete with its own collection of bespoke dance tracks but, more importantly, also contains a host of licensed tracks as well, including chart-toppers like Mis Teeq, Sugababes, DJ Sammi, Junior Senior, and Oliver Cheatham ft. Room 5.

The main game sees players progressing through a series of dance competitions before attempting to win the top prize in a professional dance competition, with the action along the way taking place in 3D dance studio environments. There are three difficulty levels in total, so accessibility is assured whether you can jive like John Travolta or mince like Michael Barrymore - beginners can learn with slower tracks and just the traditional 4-way dance steps, before moving on to more advanced manoeuvres with faster BPMs and 8-way dancing.

As you would expect, there's also a head-to-head mode that allows players to compete against each other. This mode features a rather note-worthy handicap system that allows players with two left feet to compete against the more talented dancer. Even more fun though is a consecutive multiplayer mode, which allows up to eight players to dance off against each other in teams.

Throughout the game, the dance routines have been professionally choreographed by graduates from the Royal Academy of Dance and have been designed to exploit this new 8-way system to give a more fluid feel. The result is an absorbing and addictive dance-em-up that, if you're not too careful, will have you bopping about in front of your telly for longer periods than perhaps you should. Best get them curtains drawn, eh?