New active video games are gunning for a wider audience

Editor's note: This is Part 1 of two articles on explosive growth in the video-game business. Tomorrow in Northwest Life: a look at how online gaming has taken off, courtesy of blockbuster titles like "SOCOM II."

By Mark Rahner
Seattle Times staff reporter

	JIMI LOTT / THE SEATTLE TIMES C.J. Lucero gives the "DDRMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution" a run-through. "Dance Dance Revolution" is a home version of the popular arcade game. The dance pad is for use with PlayStation 2 and can be set up with two pads for dueling dancers. This is one of a new genre of innovative, active video games companies are creating to target a wider audience of people who until now have not been the gaming type.
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The nifty new EyeToy, karaoke, dance-pad gizmos — they're all part of the plan to bring nontraditional gamers, who may think "Max Payne" occurs from an injury to the "Bionicle," into the console-game fold. You've got your game genres — sports, role-playing, action. And you've got your subgenres — say with action, third-person shooters such as "Max Payne." Over time, the genres have become well established and ever more specific, and consequently unapproachable or uninteresting to the average person, says Vince Broady, founder of the comprehensive news and review site GameSpot (www.gamespot.com).

"With competition being what it is and the stakes what they are, it's natural that some companies take a portion of their efforts to try something new and different," Broady says. "That's why you see EyeToy and 'Dance Dance Revolution.' They're sort of staking out new territory which takes traditional game play and stands it on its head, and gearing it toward a different kind of user."

Entertainment Software Association President Doug Lowenstein has made a mantra out of his claim that innovation is the biggest challenge to the $8 billion industry he represents. The reason, Lowenstein says, is there's now "a more focused effort" from game companies to expand their market from the current average player, who's a 29-year-old male. The process is slow, but for instance, the percentage of gamers older than 50 has risen 10 percent since 2000.

Their strategies: trying games that depart from the familiar, that sport new technology, making the games accessible to first-timers, and luring players out of their solitary, Cheeto-strewn rooms with more social multiplayer games.

Which brings us to the test-drives:

EyeToy (Sony, $49.99, PlayStation 2)

You're on TV! You're somebody now! Marshall McLuhan can bite your cable! This wondrous new technology for the PlayStation 2 has generated more buzz than Rush Limbaugh's painkiller addiction.

JIMI LOTT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Nina Lucero transforms the home into a stage with the Xbox microphone.

Here's how it works: You plug its little camera into your PS2's USB port, set it on your TV and aim it at yourself, then stand back a few feet. Now your onscreen image can interact in a rudimentary way with the digital surroundings in a dozen mini-games.

In "UFO Juggler," you wave your hands behind little flying saucers to make them spin upward. In "Plate Spinner," you wave your hands behind plates to keep them moving on poles. In "Ghost Eliminator," you wave your hands behind ghosts until they pop. "Wishi Washi" is especially good for making your tricep flab shake, but essentially uses the same motion to wipe suds — complete with bird poop — off of the screen.

You get the idea.

The applications are awfully limited, but some of them are funny. "Slap Stream" is like the old Whack-a-Mole game, but you're positioned amid four clouds and smacking rat-men who pop up and taunt you with belches and flatulence — which, by the way, come in an impressive variety of tones. The action's the same in "Kung Foo" as you smack little attackers flying at you, but the punching noises are right out of old chop-socky flicks, and power-ups make a nice visual-trailing effect for some wax-on, wax-off moves.

There's also a feature for video messaging with a variety of backgrounds. But the truth is that most of us are best served by Post-It notes, because we don't look like the cast of "The O.C." and can rarely muster up a good 60-second monologue.

Bottom line: Ingenious as the EyeToy is, it's hard to see anyone but small children sticking with it past the first few minutes of novelty. Experts point to its potential. Its United States debut was Nov. 4, but Europeans have had it since July and made it a hit. Down the line, Sony says we may be getting what Europeans will get this month: an "Eye Toy Groove" that puts you in homemade music videos. And while the camera is good only for the PS2, Sony says it will open up its technology so that third parties can develop other games that use it.

"DDRMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution"

(Konami, $69.99 for the game with

the dance pad, PlayStation 2)

This is the one you've seen at GameWorks with the crowds surrounding the athletic young Asian guys who rule it. The home version of the dance game has been around since 1998 and uses a floor mat that looks like a rollable tic-tac-toe board, but it's emerged as a popular and humiliating party game. DDR is a massive departure from most console games. Instead of hollering and swearing in frustration while sitting with a controller, you can holler and swear in frustration while standing drenched in perspiration and the laughter of onlookers.

Players who already own a mat can buy the new software, with updated songs and routines, for around $40. Hook a second pad into your PS2 to settle old scores with dance challenges.

Here's how it works: Directional arrows — right, left, top, bottom — rise from the bottom of the TV screen. When they reach the line near the top, you put your feet on the corresponding pad spots, in time with the music. A little screen diagram shows you how to move your feet, since the moves get progressively more complicated. There are no penalties for an overbite.

"DDRMAX2" also has a workout mode, which seems redundant, since its lesson mode caused your humble test subject to sweat as if it were a spinning class run by Lance Armstrong.

Bottom line: fun, addictive, and guaranteed to keep your self-esteem in check. If only there were a way to combine this with shooting — a DDR-Biathlon.

More karaoke may not be in humanity's best interest, but these console setups have two strong selling points: 1) Having one at home cuts down on innocent bystanders. 2) They make bulky, expensive karaoke machines about as unnecessary as Phil Spector's Wall of Sound on a Beatles album.

Karaoke Revolution

(Konami, $69.99 with headset, for PlayStation2)

Strap on the headset mike and a Madonna cone bra, and you're ready to wail. (Bra not included.) Sony gives us another game using its headset voice-recognition technology. But if you're going from this to "SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals," give yourself a few minutes rest so that you don't inadvertently sing commands to your assault team. And by the way, you'd have to have a skull the size of that tiny Beetlejuice guy's on Howard Stern's show to fit comfortably into one of these things.

How it works: You can do regular karaoke, but the arcade mode is the most fun. Pick a character and outfit, a song, a difficulty level and one of several different venues, from a county fair to an "American Idol" type of show. At the bottom of the screen, a pitch arrow tells you if you're in tune — you can go up or down an octave — and a phrase meter shows how long to hold the notes. A crowd meter shows the reaction to your performance, and if it drops too low, you can get booed off stage.

We discovered that the game doesn't register wrong words, as long as you keep the right sound — much the same way that babies can't tell if you're having a vicious, profane argument as long as you have it in soothing tones. This makes for some fun improvisations.

However, an attempt to perform "I'm Coming Out" in the voice of "South Park's" Eric Cartman in the pop show setting was a total disaster. People in the audience moaned, held their heads and wandered away as if Michael Stipe were talking politics. Another volunteer fared slightly better with "You're the One That I Want" at the fair. But a shot at "Son of a Preacher Man" by your male test subject resulted in the house lights getting shut off.

Bottom line: The game's responses to performances make it a hoot, but it would be a lot more fun with more songs included. After all, how many times can you stand "Billie Jean"? Also, it turns out suggesting that another singer sounds like Bonny Lee Bakley will promptly end a competition.

Xbox Music Mixer

(Xbox, $34.95)

Picture your dad speaking here: This is not a toy! You can't have nice things! OK, maybe not the second part, but the "Music Mixer" is definitely the one for grown-up A/V geeks, and it does a lot for the dough. In fact, we're not sure we need everything it does. But it does come with a nice, substantial mike.

How it works: The mike's for karaoke, but the song list is even skimpier than the one in "Karaoke Revolution." But wait! Connect this baby from your console to your computer and/or Xbox LIVE and the world is your big, loud oyster. You can pay to download more karaoke songs for about $1.98 each at www.xboxkaraoke.com or other sites such as www.eatsleepmusic.com. Import a song from a CD or audio file that you already own, and the Music Mixer will strip out the vocal track so that you do the singing (without onscreen lyrics).

That's not all. Use it as a media player to mix and customize your songs with on-screen visualizers.

And they must be crazy, but there's even more! Import pictures from your PC, and you've got a Photo Album Viewer. Just what your hipster friends want when they visit: a slideshow of your trip to Whistler, with professional-looking visual tweaks and a soundtrack you can customize. A transparent grab for that over-50 demographic. And what could be more touching than a montage from your mom and dad's anniversary, set to the gentle melodies of 50 Cent?

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company