It's true- you just dance. But it's fun dancing!
I can't stop playing Just Dance 3. It's insanely addictive, tapping into everyone's innate love of dancing like no other experience. And, unlike other dancing games like Dance Dance Revolution, it's quite simple to understand and play- so anyone can pick it up without any trouble. Unfortunately, its simplicity and basic nature is just as much a hindrance as it is an asset.
Just Dance 3 definitely cuts the bullshit when it comes to its presentation. The main menu has only four buttons: three small ones labelled "Just Sweat", "Extras", and "Store", and a gigantic one labelled "Dance!" No pointless additions or needless bonuses here, just... Dance.
Once you click the button, you'll find a wide variety of songs to choose from, spanning several genres deriving from the present all the way back to the 70s. You'll find Top 40 pop like "California Gurls" and "Forget You", techno jams like "No Limit" and "Everybody Dance Now", synth pop classics like "Take On Me" and "Video Killed the Radio Star", and even a few disco tunes like "Boogie Wonderland". Not all of the songs are winners, though, and sometimes they cross the line into astonishing losers! Between general mediocrity like "ET" or "Baby One More Time", you'll also find inexplicably bizarre selections, most damningly "This Is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas and a downloadable Super Mario medley labelled "Just Mario". The former, which is hardly a song that you'd equate with dancing in the first place, has you following the awkward steps of four losers dressed in bad Halloween costumes, and the latter asks you to sleepwalk through a simple routine performed by a guy in a bulky Mario costume. Dancing to both songs makes you both look and feel like a complete idiot.
Then again, looking and feeling like a complete idiot is arguably the game's main appeal. The Just Dance series is a hit at parties, and let's face it, it's not because we like to admire our friends' skills. Laughing at poor dancing is the real draw when you play in groups, so for once, the lanky amputee becomes the ultimate life of the party.
The game's only real extra mode is "Just Sweat", where you play through the normal dancing songs, but with the added bonus of earning "Sweat Points" for energetic dancing. You can either do it as a single-session thing, or follow a 1-week plan. Either way, you'll have to do a hell of a lot of dancing to actually work up a sweat, since very few of the tracks are particularly complex or tiring. The only one I really got that exhausted by was, appropriately, "Everybody Dance Now (Gonna Make You Sweat)".
There are a huge number of downloadable tracks you can get in addition to the main track list, but unless you're wealthy and really irresponsible with your spending habits, you're not likely to ever buy them all- since each individual song is 250 Wii points! When a single song costs double the money that it's worth on iTunes, not to mention only half the price of a full NES game, there's a problem.
If you have a large family or throw parties often, I'd definitely recommend Just Dance 3. It's hilarious to watch and enjoy with others, but if you're looking to play by yourself, you'll probably get bored quickly.