PSP World

Sleeper Hit: B-Boy Dancing On The PSP.

The year is 1969 and the setting is New York. We have a young man looking at a James Brown video "Get on the Good foot!" which starts breaking him down into steps. Inspired by the acrobatic moves of James Brown himself the boy shows off on the streets and people are amazed and shocked by how he just six steps his way over the floor. Years later in New York, where it all falls out B-boys or Breaker Boys top rocking and down rocking on cardboard. Break dancing became a peaceful solution between gangs who rather dance than fight. Inspired to be at peace with your feet by the Zulu Nation and Afrika Bambaataa young athletic boys and girls showed off many skills and talent through the years and now thanks to Freestyle Games you can too on a handheld.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we would like to introduce an honorable mention to all the Breakers out in the world with this import title B-Boy for the Playstation portable.

B-Boy is not your standard dancing game; it is in terms of keeping the rhythm and linking dance steps at the same time. Other dance games for example Bust a Groove where you just have to keep up with the button sequence and time it just right with the rhythm of the music. B-boy is a bit similar but you have to do the dancing and keeping up with the tempo of the song as well. Hard work as it sounds but with practice you will become a b-boy legend in the game.

The controls are pretty simple and I will begin with the top buttons than work my way down, which would be Top rock to down rock lol. The shoulder buttons offer your rhythm which you have to press at the right sequence on the circles surrounding your dance steps. While the shoulder buttons keep your tempo they also work your balance meter when doing certain moves, for example baby freezes. The directional buttons position you on the floor moving you towards your opponent, back, left or right on the dance floor. The action buttons perform your dance steps Triangle is your top rock, Circle is windmills, and X is for your six step while square is the Baby Freeze. Now to perform different moves with those main styles you can press up and triangle to perform a salsa step or if you are in windmill mode you can active backspin by pressing up and circle. If you practice well you can upgrade each move and learn how to link all steps together for big points.

Now this is where games shine the most by adding customized characters. The big thing I like is having a character that is based on you. It is a bit limited but not enough to leave you bored. You can pick a female or a male breaker than give them some personality with clothing and sex appeal so when they start their breaking you want them to look good doing it.

Now to get down to business; you start off in this break room where you can master your steps on the practice floor, check e-mail on the laptop for challenges and music, check or edit new and old moves in your moves book or change your gear. The music tracks are amazing you have Cypress Hill, Show Biz and AG, B.T. Express, and many others that you will dance too.

Modes that are available in the game Livin" Da Life which is single player career mode. B-Boy jam or arcade mode, options and extras. In the options menu which I found interesting is the Sync via USB mode. The game in itself you can connect the PSP to your computer instead of using it on the home menus. Basically it is simple swap data.

Challenges are pretty cut and dry. You will receive a message from a particular Breaker and it is up to you to step up for the challenge and hopefully set yourself up for the wall of fame, so you alone can be the top breaker in the city. When you talk about the good you must talk about the bad. The only thing I face as a problem is doing all this work and I will not have any human competition. Games like B-boy have a lot of potential but people will not give it a second look. It will get old real fast and collect dust in the "Could of Been Great" section of games.

To sum it all up for you, the game is cool and gives you a nice feel of some hip hop b-boy style rhythm game. If you are a fan of music and dance tempo games you will love B-boy. It is a sleeper hit that hardly received any mention at all. Practice makes perfect, so if you want to play like the best you have to practice for the right to be on the wall of fame. The graphics are amazing for a handheld title like this; you would actually see that they took the time to do the character movements of some breakers. You have the extras, customization and multiplayer to boot. You can't go wrong with this title. I would have to give big ups to all breakers out there especially being a Brooklyn Knight myself and give this game 4 top rocks out of 5. Keep rocking to the beat gamers!