Arcade Horror-Drea's Death by DDR

It all started when we went to the Game on Exhibition in the Brisbane State Library and played (in the Japanese section), where there was a DDR dance mat and game and I fell in love. I never really liked the arcade one because I don't really like looking like a spaz in public - but then when I saw this I was so excited I could get this at home.

The first thing I did on Monday morning was went to EB games and asked if they have a dancing game with dance mat. They said that there was a dancing game out on Wii (and I love my Wii) but it was discontinued a few months ago :-( I also tried Game Traders who said that they had a pre-owned copy in Perth that I could get sent up free of charge (which is awesome) but it would take a couple of weeks and it would be $80 and it is about $150 when it was new (and available). She also suggested I try Ebay or something to see if I could get it off there.

So, I looked on Ebay and they had a mass amount of dance matt's for$15 or so, which is great, but no game's! Obviously the matt is useless without the game! (Unless I wanted to make some cool tent that flashes and is attached to my Wii??). I searched again and found an Xbox 360 game that was a dance game that you could play online as well which sounded GREAT! So I wanted this one. Little did I know my wonderful partner had bought one a Wii dancing game on Ebay for $100. I didn't ask any questions though because I was so excited to get it (and be able to look like a spaz in private).

We got it in 2 business days (nice and quick), put the game on...and TA DAH! Nothing happened. So my bubble was popped - I had the game but it didn't work. Of course I thought - damn ebay! I shouldn't trust people, I got scammed! Then when my annoyance wore off, I used my brain and asked my partner where the game was sent from. It was from the U.S - fancy that! I guess that would mean games are the same as DVD'S - they have different REGION CODING! Damn this hard expensive learning curve! I asked my partner if they asked if it would work and the seller said 'it should work - I can't see why not' - LIES, ALL LIES! So I decided to do some asking around...

Someone from a certain electrical store told me I can get an adaptor to make it work (???). I couldn't see how this would logically work so I asked around some more. I soon found out this person didn't know what the hell he was talking about and that I needed to get a modification chip put into it, which would make it multi region - for a price of course.

Now I wasn't quite sure how to go about this, or if it was legal, or what I would get out of it, apart from being able to play this cool cool game. So I talked to my game savvy friend, who gave me a name of a great guy, with killer 80's hair, who has a business at Marsden that will chip your console for a decent price, and give you a lifetime warranty on his modifications. I wanted to know what I would get if my Wii was modified so after some research I found that under Queensland law, it is legal to modify a console, and I also found out that a mod chip enables me to play pirated games. Now, I would never do such an awful, terrible, illegal thing, but it was some extra information I found out...*cough.* This mod chip would also make my Wii multi-regional, although there is no guarantee that all different region games will play.

I decided that I would go ahead and do it...I was told it would be about $90 for the part and labour, provided it wasn't a model with a certain serial number because there is something different in these

consoles that take more work. As I was reading this I was thinking, geeze that would suck if you had one of those consoles and had to pay more! You don't have any other benefits and you have to pay more! I know what you are thinking now...YES! I was one of those lucky few! I really should have checked the serial number of my console before I took it in to be done, but oh well. So it cost me $150. While I was sobbing about having to pay more than I thought, the light at the end

I put it in the console... and plugged in my dance matt...and it fires up going DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION! And then the screen goes blank. I thought...oh I must have unplugged it or something so I checked all my controls and plugs and tried it again...I waited in anticipation.

Again I heard DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION! And then a blank screen. So after all of this...the game still doesn't work. I just sat and stared at the screen looking depressed and sad.

So...putting it back on Ebay and am just going to get the Xbox 360 one... *SIGH* I just wanna dance! Is that so hard?! When I actually get to play either of the games I will do a review to let you know how brilliant it is. Well it better be for all this damn effort!

Comments

Jordan
10 May 2009, 10:27

I don't want to sound like a know-it-all but there's a few ways you could get that working, without physical and costly modifications.

Physical chips are now old news with Wii's, there's a few different software hacks out for simple region compatibility or the more devious devices that allow booting from a USB HDD.