Games review – Michael Jackson: The Experience is bad
The King of Pop lives on in a new game from the makers of Just Dance, but is this a respectful homage or a disappointing cash-in?
Michael Jackson was perhaps the world's richest video games fan. He managed to spend $500,000 on a personal arcade, one apparently ripped from the dreams of a million games fans. Well, maybe it fell down a bit on the specifics (this virtual view shows it to be a fairly random collection of the great and the unremarkable) but it was close enough.
Even with *****'s questionable taste in coin-ops though we're not sure even he would've thought much of this new game. Since it's published by Ubisoft you've probably already guessed it's a Just Dance clone, so we'll spare you that shock reveal. But what is surprising is how little use it really makes of Jackson's life and work.
As ever the explanation for a misused licence is almost certainly a lack of time (although the Wii and portable versions have got out just in time for Christmas the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games have been delayed all the way to March). In terms of gameplay and basic features this is almost exactly the same as Just Dance, which means it's you and your friends dancing about in front of the Wii and pretending that the motion controls know whether you're getting the moves right or not.
Instead of trying to mimic anonymous performers this time you're trying to copy ***** and his dancers, although weirdly the facial features are not those of the man himself. You would've thought Ubisoft would have dropped Just Dance's neon lit graphical style, since it has no relevance to the King Of Pop, but it remains and adds a further air of cheap tackiness.
The various dance routines are still broken down into a series of simpler moves, which you have to copy at the right time. This is essentially the same system now also used by Dance Central, but since the Wii has only the relative positions of the remote and nunchuck to go by it's only able to make fairly vague guesses as to whether you're doing it right.
In fact it proves considerably less reliable than even Just Dance 2. Whereas that game could design its own moves to help mitigate the intrinsic control problems this has to follow the more complex routines of MJ himself. Together with unhelpfully vague onscreen icons the whole thing can quickly descend into a flailing farce of uncoordinated limbs.
It doesn't help that the famous moonwalk is clearly impossible for the Wii to detect, since it hasn't a clue what your legs are doing.
Even if you blame the limitations of the host console for many of these issues it still doesn't explain the often bizarre choice of tracks (why waste a song on the obscure Streetwalker and why is Earth Song included when it's nearly impossible to dance to?). There's also a paucity of music videos or other content - instead you get footage of some chorographers, which might be more practical for the game but really isn't the same thing.
Some sort of career mode might have been a good idea too, or indeed anything to make the game seem like something other than a Just Dance expansion pack.
No doubt the Kinect version will work a lot better on a technical level (we're not sure how much more useful Move will be); but unless it makes a lot more effect at providing a real celebration of MJ's career and life, as well as just his dance moves, it's going to seem just as disappointing.
In Short: As poorly named game as there's ever been, since this doesn't recreate the experience of *****'s music or life - just a few motion-controlled dance moves.
Pros: There may be some odd inclusions but most of the more obvious songs are included. Perfectly good party fun if you don’t care that the controls don't work.
Cons: Motion controls are as inaccurate as ever, if not more so. No real extra content, no career mode and very little celebration of MJ outside the songs themselves.
Score: 5/10
Formats: Wii (reviewed), Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS and PSP
Price: £34.99, rated 12
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier/Paris
Release Date: 26th November 2010 (Xbox 360 and PS3 in March)
