It’s been a while since I posted a new PS3 fitness game review. It’s certainly not been for want of trying; I’ve been checking the new game release schedule pretty closely for the past few months, but it seems that there are only two Move games that involve any kind of physical exertion this season. The first is Sports Champions 2, which I’ll be reviewing shortly, and the second is Just Dance 4, which I’ll be reviewing now.

Just Dance 4, of course, started on the Wii and continues to be the most popular dance franchise on that platform. For the Xbox 360, Dance Central 3 reigns supreme. For the Playstation 3, last year Sony released Everybody Dance, which I thought was a pretty good game, if the weakest of the three as a showcase for the platform. The fact that there is no 2012 edition leads me to believe that perhaps sales of Everybody Dance weren’t necessarily phenomenal. It’s clear that PS3 developers are focusing more on hardcore games and less on motion control or fitness games. Still, if you are a household who happens to own a PS3, there is still a lot of good exergaming to be done, and the game we’re going to review today is a shining example.

With Just Dance 4, Ubisoft made the good choice of developing it to be virtually identical between platforms. You can learn the moves on a PS3, take those same moves to a friend’s house with an Xbox, and the kids can use what they learned in gym class on a Wii.

When you start the game you’re asked if you want to create a Uplay account. In all honesty, between my Playstation Account and NIntendo account and my Microsoft account and my gazillion other accounts I wasn’t all that enthusiastic of signing up for yet another one. But since it seems that this will be the main way that Ubisoft allows users to access downloadable content, and there might be some interesting bonus content in the future, I figured I’d go ahead and sign up.

The opening menu of Just Dance 4 should be familiar to everyone by now; it consists of two options: Just Dance and Just Sweat. Selecting menu options is a pleasure on the PS3 with the extra big buttons and the precision of the Playstation Move controller. Reports are that the Xbox version suffers greatly because its menus are almost impossible to navigate using the Kinect.

Selecting “Just Dance” lets you go right away to selecting songs. One unique thing about Just Dance 4 is that depending on the song, you’ll get choreography for one, two, or four players. Four player choreography is especially fun if you’re playing with a group of people; each player gets a different and unique part to dance to, and the results are amazing if all four of you do it well and amazingly hilarious if you don’t (which will be the more common occurrence). Here’s a duet of my wife and me dancing to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” (spoiler alert: she wins).

While the PS3 often gets third world status when compared to the popularity of the Wii or the full body motion detection of the Kinect, in this case the PS3 shines in that you get the best of both: because the PS3 Move controller’s motions can be detected both by light trails on the Playstation Eye, as well as through radio signals similar to the traditional Wii controller, players don’t necessarily need to be in camera range to be detected. This means that unlike the Xbox version where four players would have to squeeze to fit inside the camera view of the Kinect camera, on the PS3 version all four players can play, providing all have a PS3 Move controller.

The playlist for Just Dance 4 consists of a surprising number of licensed tracks from some of the hottest pop stars. There’s also a good selection of oldies and songs from multiple genres, so there’s a good chance that everyone in your group playing will find a song that appeals to him or her:

Asereje (The Ketchup Song) – Las Ketchup – Duo – 1 of 3
Beauty and a Beat – Justin Bieber featuring Nicki Minaj – Solo – 3 of 3
Beware Of The Boys (Mundian To Bach Ke) – Panjabi MC – Quartet – 2 of 3
Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen – Solo – 1 of 3
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You – Boys Town Gang – Duo – 1 of 3
Crazy Little Thing – Anja – Solo – 3 of 3
Crucified – Army of Lovers – Quartet – 3 of 3
Disturbia – Rihanna – Solo – 3 of 3
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love – Dancing Bros. – Duo – 2 of 3
Good Feeling – Flo Rida – Solo – 2 of 3
Good Girl – Carrie Underwood – Solo – 1 of 3
Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)” – Blu Cantrell – Solo – 1 of 3
Hot For Me – A.K.A – Solo – 2 of 3
I Like It – The Blackout Allstars – Duo – 3 of 3
(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life – Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes – Duet – 3 of 3
Istanbul – They Might Be Giants – Quartet – 1 of 3
Jailhouse Rock – Elvis Presley – Quartet – 1 of 3
Livin’ la Vida Loca” – Ricky Martin – Solo – 3 of 3
Love You Like A Love Song – Selena Gomez and the Scene – Solo – 1 of 3
Make The Party (Don’t Stop) – Bunny Beatz – Solo – 2 of 3
Maneater – Nelly Furtado – Solo – 2 of 3
Mas Que Nada – Sergio Mendes featuring The Black Eyed Peas – Solo – 1 of 3
Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera – Solo – 2 of 3
Mr. Saxobeat – Alexandra Stan – Solo – 1 of 3
Oh No! – Marina and The Diamonds – Solo – 3 of 3
On The Floor – Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull – 1 of 3
Oops!… I Did It Again” – The Girly Team – Quartet – 2 of 3
Rock N’Roll (Will Take You To The Mountain) – Skrillex – Solo – 2 of 3
Rock Lobster – The B-52′s – Duo – 2 of 3
Run The Show – Kat DeLuna featuring Busta Rhymes – Duo – 3 of 3
So What – Pink – Solo – 1 of 3
Some Catchin’ Up To Do- Sammy – Solo – 1 of 3
Super Bass – Nicki Minaj – Solo – 3 of 3
Superstition – Stevie Wonder – Solo – 1 of 3
The Final Countdown – Europe – Duo – 3 of 3
Time Warp” – Halloween Thrills – Quartet – 3 of 3
Tribal Dance – 2 Unlimited – Duo – 3 of 3
Umbrella – Rihanna featuring Jay-Z – Solo – 1 of 3
We No Speak Americano – Hit The Electro Beat – Solo – 2 of 3
What Makes You Beautiful – One Direction – Quartet – 1 of 3
Wild Wild West – Will Smith – Quartet – 3 of 3
You’re The First, The Last, My Everything” – Barry White – Quartet – 1 of 3

Gameplay is pretty much the same as always: you dance by mirroring the moves of an on-screen counterpart. The more precise your dance is, the more points  and stars you’ll get and the more positive on-screen feedback you’ll get. Pictographs will scroll along the bottom of the screen to cue you on upcoming moves. Unlike the Kinect, the Wii and Ps3 versions of the game only detect your right hand, which is holding the controller. In a sense, you’re on the “honor system” to move the rest of your body the right way, but after a lot of experimentation I found that to get the highest scores it’s a lot easier just to dance the correct moves with your whole body than to try to figure out how to game the system by moving your right hand in the right way.

Something new to Just Dance 4 is “Battle Mode”, where you can play against another player (or against the computer). You start by choosing a character that corresponds to a song. Then, you basically compete in a dance-off. It’s an interesting twist on fighting games like Street Fighter, where the player that dances the most precise dance steps will score “hits” on the other. Whoever has the most life left at the end of a round wins that round and their song will be imposed on the next round.

Overall, Just Dance 4 is by far the best dance game for the Playstation 3, and among the best fitness games of any kind. Highly recommended.

A few weeks ago I published my review of Just Dance 4 for the Wii U. As I know a lot of folks out there still are using the Wii as their main console (or have purchased a Wii U and are using their old Wii in their home gym exclusively for working out), I figured I’d spend a few minutes to talk about Just Dance for the Wii.

Just Dance 4 for the Wii is for all intents and purposes the same as its Wii U counterpart, with its simple opening menu with two options (Just Dance and Just Sweat), the same ability to create Dancer Cards, virtually the same song list, and the same fun 1-4 person choreography. You’ll also be able to unlock Battle Mode which is a fun two-player game putting you against another player (all 5 battles must be unlocked).

It also has the same “Dance Quests” under each song, and the same system of unlocking new features using Mojo Points. The only thing missing are a few Wii U exclusive songs, as well as some Wii U features like “Puppet Master Mode”.

Just Sweat Mode is also set up exactly the same on both systems. You start out with four sessions (Aerobics in Space, Sweat Around the World, Electro Body Combat, or Cheerleaders Boot Camp) representing 80’s Pop, World Music, Electro Music, or Punk Rock genres and Dynamic Fitness, Latin Dance, Cardio Fighting, or Extreme Training styles. You’ll also be able to unlock one more (Swinging 60s Workout) as you advance.

These aren’t just the standard choreographed songs set to music, but specially designed workouts with moves that exercise specific parts of your body and have proper warm-up and cool-down routines. Here’s a video of “Sweat Around the World” workout that features Latin dances; not surprisingly, there’s a very Zumba-esqure feel with a lot of the dancing.

Assuming you really perform the workouts to the best of your ability for a sustained period of time (at least 30 minutes a day), they are intense cardio workouts that rival or surpass the best “pure workout titles” on the Wii (and in fact have such a good balance of fun, replay value, and exercise that it still ranks #1 on our list of Best Wii Fitness Games).

Just Dance, Just Dance 2, and Just Dance 3 for the Wii were already excellent titles, but as I did with the Wii U version of the game I wholeheartedly give this one 5 of 5 stars. There are a lot of things that will make you want to take Just Dance 4 off the shelf and play it again and again, whether it’s collecting Mojo Points to unlock new game features (some songs will flash an icon telling you you can double-Mojo points), hitting a fitness goal, or mastering a particular routine with a friend.

While the Wii U features certainly do add some fun and frivolity when playing in groups, they are certainly not central to the gameplay. The meat of the game is still intact in the Wii version, and it’s still a worthwhile buy if you don’t have immediate plans to purchase a Wii U. I was a little disappointed to find that the stats I had earned while playing the Wii U version were not reflected when I played the Wii version, meaning that if you do get the Wii U version eventually, you’ll have to unlock all the bonus features from scratch.

Something else Just Dance 4 has, which I didn’t mention on the Wii U review, is an excellent in-game Store where you can purchase downloadable content. I knew exactly the first song I wanted to buy.

Okay, I know it’s this generation’s “Macarena” or “Who Let the Dogs Out”, but hey, I’ve been wanting to learn PSY’s moves since I first saw Gangham Style on YouTube, and while the Just Dance choreography isn’t an exact match to the video, all of his signature moves are there.

As you can see, the download process is amazingly simple; as long as you have Wii Points in your account the 300 points will be deducted from that, and the song will appear right in the Just Dance 4 menu once you download it. You can choose to download the song to Wii System Memory or to an SD card. Within the options menu, you can even move your downloaded content between the memory and the SD card.