Got this delivered from Playasia this morning and played for an hour or so earlier.
The first thing I noticed is how slick the presentation is, I've played older versions in the arcade (PREX 2 & Premier 3) and always thought that Pump was slicker looking than its closest rival DDR/Dancing Stage but Exceed has raised the bar further. It's a lot closer presentation wise to Konami's Beatmania IIDX series which is one of the premier Bemani/Rythmn Action titles, featuring fully animated background videos in many of the new songs instead of the more generic ones you'll find in DDR.
What else is immediately impressive about exceed is the large Number of songs to choose from (about 100) mixing K-Pop, Rock, Dance, and a bunch of excellent classical remixes from In-House musicians Banya. Obviosuly the music won't be to everyone's tastes but the great thing about these games is that they're so much fun that you immediately forgive any discrepencies in the quality of the music (before I started playing DDR years back you wouldn't have caught me dead listening to half the stuff on Bemani games, now I'm finding myself constantly hunting down Beatmania soundtracks).
I won't go into the whole which is better DDR or Pump debate because quite frankly it's rather pointless, some people prefer one some people prefer the other but I think it's safe to say if you like these type of games then you'll love Pump It Up Exceed.
For those that have PC versions of the game and are wondering if their mats will work on the PS2 then the answer is yes, I tried the original US USB PC mat and it worked fine(I assume the more recent Premier 3 mat will work also). The quality of the PS2 USB mat is excellent, it's just as well made as the PC versions and it has a non-stick rubber underlay, wether this will hold it still for Crazy level songs I don't know, I'm too much of a Pump noob to try those.
The first thing I noticed is how slick the presentation is, I've played older versions in the arcade (PREX 2 & Premier 3) and always thought that Pump was slicker looking than its closest rival DDR/Dancing Stage but Exceed has raised the bar further. It's a lot closer presentation wise to Konami's Beatmania IIDX series which is one of the premier Bemani/Rythmn Action titles, featuring fully animated background videos in many of the new songs instead of the more generic ones you'll find in DDR.
What else is immediately impressive about exceed is the large Number of songs to choose from (about 100) mixing K-Pop, Rock, Dance, and a bunch of excellent classical remixes from In-House musicians Banya. Obviosuly the music won't be to everyone's tastes but the great thing about these games is that they're so much fun that you immediately forgive any discrepencies in the quality of the music (before I started playing DDR years back you wouldn't have caught me dead listening to half the stuff on Bemani games, now I'm finding myself constantly hunting down Beatmania soundtracks).
I won't go into the whole which is better DDR or Pump debate because quite frankly it's rather pointless, some people prefer one some people prefer the other but I think it's safe to say if you like these type of games then you'll love Pump It Up Exceed.
For those that have PC versions of the game and are wondering if their mats will work on the PS2 then the answer is yes, I tried the original US USB PC mat and it worked fine(I assume the more recent Premier 3 mat will work also). The quality of the PS2 USB mat is excellent, it's just as well made as the PC versions and it has a non-stick rubber underlay, wether this will hold it still for Crazy level songs I don't know, I'm too much of a Pump noob to try those.
Do you know if the PC mat will link in with the PS2 one to work as a 2nd player?
I'm having to take a break due to a rather nasty wrist problem (more than likely it's a trapped nerve or something RSI related 
), but my profile's
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