jubeat
The latest and greatest thing in Japanese arcades.
It's incredibly instinctive, and addictive as a consequence. Jubeat really puts you in The Zone, and after a song or two you begin to feel the rhythm of the song in your hands rather than just react to the visual prompting, playing from instinct rather than having to think. The display is mesmerisingly beautiful, high-definition and space-agey in design; the calm blue background is the perfect complement to the fast-moving flashing circles. It also has the effect of making everyone who plays it look like a baton conductor on cocaine, with mad staring eyes and insane hand flourishes, except directing J-pop and ridiculous wailing-guitar versions of fast-paced classical music rather than an orchestra.
It's the combination of the jubeat's tactile nature and its captivating sights and sounds that makes it unique in the rhythm-action world. There's such overwhelming sensory feedback whilst you're playing, it's easy to completely forget your surroundings and end up emerging, blinking, from a challenging song to find that you have a small audience of impatient people waiting to play. Thankfully, it's a great spectator sport - watching others' technique is entertainment in itself. It's also damned hard, in the correct and old-fashioned way - it expects you to memorise patterns and pull off impossible feats of dexterity to compete on the upper echelons. There are three difficulty levels, all accessible from the start and all clearly labelled so you don't find yourself failing out on the first song because it was unexpectedly difficult.
It rewards you the more you play, as well, provided you have an e-Amusement Pass - a magic piece of plastic that gives you one unified account across all Konami arcade games. It saves your name and progress, pushing you further up the rankings the more songs you complete. Periodically you unlock rewards, such as new, near-impossible songs, or spacier alternatives to the blooming circles for the display. Stats are all tracked online, but unless you've managed a perfect score of 1000000, don't expect to see your name up there.
The machines are also capable of online and local multiplayer; they come in pairs at the arcade, enabling to challenge the person playing next to you, or someone further away online if you're not feeling so bold. The community's active, and there are frequent online tournaments and offline events. It's only been out since last August, so they're not quite on the same scale as the massive Guitar Freaks tournaments and unveilings, but jubeat is establishing a community for itself nonetheless - it's perhaps only limited by its comparatively small song selection (30-odd to established bemani games' hundreds) and the difficulty, which many players have already comprehensively mastered.
Jubeat was perhaps always going to nestle comfortably in the bright, loud bosom of Japanese arcades, but whether it will fit in over here next to the nine-year-old DDR machines and OutRun2 cabinets in a bowling alley in Neasden is another matter entirely. Jubeat had a location test in the US and Europe towards the latter half of last year, with songs like 'Kisu Shite Hoshii' and 'BLOOD on FIRE' replaced by Barbie Girl and Take on Me (though a selection of the maddest Japanese offerings is likely to remain). It also made a rather low-key appearance at ATEI 2009. As of yet, though, there's little word as to when and where it might start appearing. Even in Japanese arcades, jubeat's innovative nature distinguishes it from the endless near-identical iterations of other arcade machines; in the context of our anaemic, novelty-starved arcade culture, its charm would be all the more appreciable.
Check out our jubeat gallery for photographs of the units.