MC Groovz Dance Craze

Are you ready to bust some moves?

NA release: 22nd November 2004
EU release: 23rd June 2005
JP release: N/A
Developer: Mad Catz
Publisher: Mad Catz
NGC Magazine Score: N/A
Mods Used: None

This is one where the story surrounding the game is far more interesting than the game itself. It was developed by MadCatz, known for making many terrible third party controllers. As an accessory developer, they noticed something interesting: dance games were popular on both PlayStation and Xbox, but none had been made for the GameCube. So they set out to make their own dance game, exclusive for the GameCube, so they can sell a dance mat accessory.

As you’d expect, it’s pretty much a Dance Dance Revolution clone. Arrows move from the centre of the screen and you put your foot on the correct arrow when it reaches a marker. Some require you to stand on the spot for a few seconds before releasing, which is pretty much the only new thing this game does. If this was the entire game, then perhaps this game would be completely unnoteworthy and MadCatz would have become a successful company, but in the options is something seemingly harmless: you can change the layout of the arrows.

This alternative layout is exactly the same as Dance Dance Revolution, and it led to Konami expanding their lawsuit of the franchise In The Groove (from a different developer) to also cover MadCatz’ dancing game. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, but it also scared MadCatz. They were working with a different developer to make accessories for another music based rhythm game.

As a result of the lawsuit, MadCatz got cold feet and backed out of making the accessories for the Xbox port of the game (the PS2 ones were being handled by someone else) – they even had to pay $300,000 to the developer. That game was Guitar Hero. Yes, because of this random GameCube dancing game, MadCatz had to pay a substantial amount of money to not be associated with the massively successful Guitar Hero franchise.

As for the game itself, it’s terrible. The arrows are seemingly random and not linked to the music in any way, even popping up before a song starts or after it has finished. There’s very few big hitters, with a strange version of Walking on Sunshine being the most well known and very few seem like they suit a dancing game. What a lot of drama over such a dreadful product.

Worst

The simple truth is that the generic MC Groovz Dance Craze is a broken GameCube game. The dance work doesn’t match with the music and therefore the title’s dance challenges are not fun. Based on that alone, I’d be giving this sucker a big thumbs down if I were Roger Ebert, whom I incidentally strive to be, suit and all. But sadly, it gets worse because the music selection sucks, too. And to top it all off, this DDR rip-off with no soul costs just as much as today’s cutting-edge GameCube titles.
Matt Casamassina, IGN

Remake or remaster?

No.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to get MC Groovz Dance Craze.