Michael Jackson: The Experience

Rating: E

Score: 7.0/10

Music has taken off into so much. It is growing like a weed in the entertainment industry. It has branched off from few genres to many, with icons of the music industry everywhere. One of the biggest icons, and the one with undoubtedly the best dance moves, is the late Michael Jackson. It's pretty distinct that his dancing has left a mark when the phrase "Thriller" is now associated with the classic dance everyone's familiar with, even today (maybe less so with the Justin Beiber-obsessed youth). It almost seems like the perfect combination to make a dancing game based on Michael Jackson's hits. This game is available for the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PSP, and Nintendo DS.

Well, who was Michael Jackson? Who was the renowned "King Of Pop"? That's something for you to look up on your own time, because the game certainly tells nothing about him. In the game's defense, hopefully you'd know a bit about the man in the title ( one of the biggest music icons). In retaliation, there's no reason I can't learn more, and here's the perfect chance.

Of course, you get all of the big songs: Billie Jean, Thriller, Smooth Criminal, Bad, Beat It, Black and White, the works. With all the songs, you get the dances. As the song plays, you dance to the song, with the moves showing up on screen.

Dancing perfectly to Jackson's stylistic dances sounds about as amazing as it actually is, and I wouldn't doubt if a lot of readers have already attempted such dances. Here's the chance to learn every piece of the dance, and impress your friends. From Beat It's faster-paced dancing to Thriller's iconic choreography, you'll get it all.

Unless you know all of Jackson's dance moves, some of the choreography is quite difficult to understand. If you do know all of his dance moves, you probably already have this game and have shown off to friends. A little bubble passing by the screen quickly isn't a long time to understand anything more than moving your hands. Some songs are a lot harder than others for this reason. All songs, however, are quite simple if you are already familiar with the dance.

Take Thriller for example. Thriller is the hardest dance in the game, but it's made relatively easy since everyone knows the dance well, there's nothing to "learn". Nothing to follow, just dancing, with makes for quite the "experience" when you have the back-up dancers and everything. The game rewards you by telling you you're a good dancer.

It's quite the experience in a bad manner. The game is trying to sell as an "easy to pick-up-and-play dancing game where you dance to Michael Jackson", but learning the choreography on the spot is roughly as engaging as trying to dance to a music video you've never seen before; a poor "experience" indeed. It might be better if a few of the motions were a little more spot-on with the recognition or had a little bit better instructions on the fly (i.e. while dancing). Not to mention you need to emulate the patented anti-gravity lean in Smooth Criminal in your own house. Good luck with that. For those who don't know the lean...you need to watch the music video and listen to more of Jackson's music. Not recognizing the “lean” is tantamount to not knowing the “moonwalk”.

Honestly, for the kind of game it is, Michael Jackson: The Experience is fun. The choreography is fun, the music is excellent, and it's quite impressive to learn when all is said and done. While lacking in features, it does bring one thing to the table, an amazing dancing experience for those familiar, and a poor (but informative) experience otherwise. I'd really like to have made a "Who's bad? This game's bad!" joke, but it's unfortunately for me not bad enough to joke about, so that joke's going to have to beat it.