Review: The Jungle Book Rhythm n’ Groove Dance Pack
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The Jungle Book Rhythm n’
Groove Dance Pack
For Playstation
by Ubisoft and Disney Interactive
Rated ‘E’ for Everyone by ESRB.
Purchase at Amazon.com
(c) Disney
Review by John Frost and Stacey Wright
One of the latest crazes to hit the arcade scene is ‘Dance Dance Revolution.’ The player steps forward, back, or side to side with the beat while trying to match the steps as they scroll by on the screen. It’s a lot of fun to watch and the combination of moves some young dance wizards pull off are simply amazing. It takes some courage to give it a try in public, however.
Well Disney fans you can rejoice and play a very similar game in the privacy of your own family room. ‘The Jungle Book Rhythm n’ Groove Dance Pack’ (JBRnG) follows the lead of ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ but at a level that is fun and appropriate for all family members.
With difficulty ranging from Easy to Crazy, JBRnG provides an aerobic workout from low impact to fact paced hard breathing fun. Each game follows a good workout pattern by starting slow, working up to the most difficult pace, and then ends with a cool down session. Plus it’s just plain fun to dance with all the characters from Walt Disney’s ‘The Jungle Book.’
(c) Disney
The game follows the basic plot of the movie. The player assumes the role of Mowgli in his journey to the man-cub city. The friends and foes of the movie provide dance challenges which Mowgli must pass in order to proceed.
In between the dancing, the story of ‘The Jungle Book’ is played out in animated computer graphics scenes that near Pixar quality at times. The video game graphics don’t have the same detail but are still visually entertaining.
The game has a good mix of old favorites and new songs to dance along to. One new song “A brand new day” stands out as great Disney song all by itself. Some of the old songs have been remixed to make them a little easier to dance to.
The game itself is easy to set up. Just plug in the dance pad to the controller port. No special configuration is required. However, the first dance pad we brought home wasn’t functional. So maybe check yours at the store if possible.
We’ve only tried it with one player, but you can go foot to foot with a friend. All you need is a second dance pad which you can order from Ubi Soft for $19.99 plus shipping and handling with a coupon inside the game.
We’ve experienced some troubles saving and loading games. Every level passed is can be saved (which is tedious at times), but when we tried to reload an old game the Playstation crashed. However, we’re not sure if that’s a problem with the memory card or the game. Ubi Soft provides a technical support number you can call if you encounter similar problems.
Once you’ve completed a game in ‘story mode’ other features are unlocked. However, the music choices do seem very limited.
Our advice is to put on your dance shoes and go get this game. Your whole family can enjoy some classic Disney fun and get some exercise at the same time. Then when you go back to the arcade, you can show off your new moves on ‘Dance Dance Revolution.’
All in all we give JBRnG four out of five bananas.
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-- Posted May 30, 2001
-- Review by John Frost and Stacey Wright