Get Up and Dance is a PS3 specific title that competes with Just Dance 3 and other dancing games. How well does Get Up and Dance stand up to those other alternatives?

First, I want to say that I'm this game's target audience. I adore dance games, and I own most of them. So I would say it's probably clear if you're not a dance game fan you probably won't like this. There are gamers who like Grand Theft Auto and who hate dance games. So that should hopefully be fairly obvious. This is a dance game, and it would appeal to dance game fans.

So, that being said, the game does have some good points. Many games don't have good multiplayer mode - this features a bunch of them. You can be the lead singer or backup and participate in a number of modes. There are "last man standing" and competitions. So for people with multiple dancers in the house, this stands out if only because it has those options. I do want to note that Just Dance 3 does have four player mode that is extremely well done, with each player having their own parts to do that are well choreographed.

Also, I appreciate that Get Up and Dance, like the Just Dance 3 series, has real humans doing the dancing. That makes a powerful difference in dancing along. You can see their actual bodies doing the moves, not robotic entities. It makes the dancing much more fun.

So, those two things being said, there is a lot done poorly here. The interface is frustrating. If you want to create your own profile you can't do it from single player mode. You have to go out into another mode, like fitness mode, and create the profile there. You also have to switch to the standard controller to do that. Then when your profile is set, you can now go back to single player to use it.

But each time you select a song and finish it you're dumped out at the main menu again and have to choose again the single player mode, and then start from the beginning of the song list again to scroll through. It is incredibly tedious. When you're dancing you don't want to be doing all this other in-and-out. Other games give you a much easier song selection screen and ability to go in and out.

I was encouraged that they had a fitness mode, but they won't let you choose your own songs! You tell it what your goal is and then THEY force songs on you. In my case, they were songs I hated. I didn't want to play it any more. In other games you set your goal and then play whatever songs you want until you reach the calorie goal / sweat point goal / etc.

On the song list, that is going to be a very personal decision game to game. Every one of us has different songs we enjoy and that's OK. I had a fair mix in here that I enjoyed. I'm sure others like different songs on the list, and that's fine. Of course if you hate ALL the songs, you probably want a different game.

The visuals are fairly poor. Yes, they get points for having real humans, which I like, and fairly decent choreography. But they also overlay the "real video" in the background, mirrored in multiple directions, plus awful heads-up display which is quite distracting on one hand and doesn't let you easily see how you're doing on the other. It's non-functional in many ways.

But then we get to the absolute worst part, which still boggles my mind. In many cases parts of the song DO NOT MATCH THE MOVES. I cannot believe a dance game would be released where this happens. You'll be dancing along and then the moves on screen will get out of sync with the music. This is just absolutely wrong. It's the most basic thing a dance game needs to get right. The characters can be pixelly, the features can be short, but at least get the dance moves to work properly!

I don't think I've ever done this to a dance game, but I'm going to give it two stars. If it doesn't even get the dance-plus-song part right, how can people dance to it? It becomes an exercise in frustration. And when you stack on the chaotic interface, the issues with the modes, the poor heads-up display, and the other issues, it just is not something I would play. Especially not with so many other fantastic alternatives out there.

Oh, and as a final note for parents out there, they left the swear words in the songs. So you won't want to get this for kids.

I purchased this game with my own funds, for the purpose of doing this review.

Buy Get Up and Dance from Amazon.com