Space Channel 5

Product Description Meet Ulala (pronounced ooh-la-la), a rookie reporter assigned to cover a breaking dance news story. Pudgy dancing aliens (resembling futuristic gummy bears) have beamed down and are zapping human inhabitants into an offbeat dance step. More than just watch from the sidelines, Ulala must free fellow earthlings from the spell by matching the aliens' dance moves step for step. Unlike when playing previous move-memorization games such as Simon and Concentration, players of Space Channel 5 will need to feel the rhythm--the tempo, pauses, and idiosyncrasies of the beat--as well as the sequence of steps to get it right. Space Channel 5 is nearly as fun to watch as it is to play, thanks to an ever changing array of special effects and settings. Ulala's adventures take her from the invaded spaceport to the interior of an asteroid--and to alien locales too bizarre to describe. The gorgeous animated settings are made all the more impressive by the smoothly animated characters whose moves react instantly to the player's manipulations. With easy-to-master controls, onscreen characters soon become natural extensions of the player, creating a powerful interactive experience. Surprises abound throughout the game, including hidden levels and miniquests. And alert players just might run into a special guest celebrity who needs Ulala's help. Enjoy the groove! about Space Channel 5. Take a at Space Channel 5's opening levels. Read an interview with Space Channel 5 designer . Review How many gamers know the name Tetsuya Mizuguchi? Probably not too many, but more than a few know the names of his games, namely, Sega Rally and Sega Rally 2. Now that his hallowed AM3 is nothing more than legend, Mizuguchi has gone on to spearhead Sega Soft R&D Dept. 9, and the fruits of the group's first labor is the future retro-techno dancing game Space Channel 5. A dancing game? Yes, and what a dancing game it is. Designed by former members of Team Andromeda (Panzer Dragoon) and Sonic Team (Sonic Adventure, natch), Space Channel 5 is a fresh experience for all programmers involved, and it shows. Energetic and up-tempo, SC5 evokes comparisons to Parappa the Rapper and Bust-A-Groove, the progenitors of the dancing-game genre. Despite the clones that these games have spawned, it takes more than some polygonal puppets and a beat to make a keeper. Um Jammer Lammy followed and failed to fully ignite the masses, and Dance Dance Revolution is a Twister-like aerobic excursion that goes off on its own unique path. So where does that leave Space Channel 5? Somewhere deep in space is a funky race of aliens called Morolians, who have watched the planet Earth from afar and have decided to take control of the masses with their hypnotic disco dancing. Ulala, the sprightly orange-clad heroine of the game, is covering the situation as an on-scene reporter for the television network Space Channel 5. As she encounters each band of Morolians whisking away more and more humans, Ulala finds herself attempting to outdance the Morolians and recapture the bewildered natives The game's controls consist of the digital directional pad, plus the A and B buttons for shooting. Combat entails mimicking the Morolians' moves (for example, up, down, up, down, shoot, shoot, shoot). You must duplicate their moves, a la Simon Says, to defeat the current band of Morolians and liberate whatever humans they might have under their sway. In addition to replicating the Morolians' moves, you must also hit the right "shoot" button, with the A button set to whack aliens and the B button set to liberate humans. This can tax even the most nimble of fingers when the going gets rough. However, the better you do, the more people you add to your posse. While Ulala starts off solo, by the end of a level she may have a dozen people following her, all choreographed to her every move like a Janet Jackson video. Accordingly, as you progress through the game, the rhythmic challenges increa