Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

The items are available for purchase via Redbana’s microtransaction system. You can purchase game money, or Bana Cash, from within the game, but an alternate form of currency is what Redbana refers to as “beats.” Some items are only available for purchase with beats, which are earned through playing the game against others. Now if only this option was available in real malls, I can tell you that I would have saved my credit card a lot of wear and tear from previous girlfriends. “You like those shoes, baby? Dance for ‘em.”
After selecting my outfit, we headed off to the FAM office. Think of this is a guild hall. You are given a FAM house when you create your FAM, and from there, you can recruit more members and build up your house. Here you can also have a private FAM forum, a shared bank, and many more house customization options.


From the FAM office, we bolted over to the Audition Studio. The Studio is your sanctuary. Here, you’ll find large lists of all the different dance moves you can pull off. And there are a lot of them. The Studio serves as a place to memorize the moves so that once you get into the actual dance-offs you won’t end up like me, staring blankly at the screen as the required keystrokes pop up and almost as quickly disappear when you weren’t fast enough to pull off the move. I suspect that serious players of the game will likely spend more time in the Studio than anywhere else, familiarizing themselves with any possible combination that could come up.

Since we didn’t have days to go over all of this, my practice was limited to trying a couple of combinations before we moved along. I was so unprepared for what was to come it was reminiscent of a recurring nightmare which spotlighted me as the protagonist of a Broadway musical that I had never before seen or heard of…complete with a full house of unforgiving audience members. Yes folks, the next stop was the Dance Hall. My hands were shaking, as I was fully expecting Simon Cowell to jump out of the screen and start attacking my character and physique. I wasn’t sure if I could withstand that sort of psychological attack. But I feigned bravery, and clicked the Dance Hall button.

Simon wasn’t there, but I was met by my hosts, who had opened up a private, password protected room for us. I was informed that I could level my character to 100 by gaining experience in the dance games. The higher the level, the more dance modes and features can be unlocked. Eventually, it’s possible to become part of a couple for special couple’s dances, and even to get married. (Oh, if only Baz Luhrmann had access to this game before writing Strictly Ballroom.) The title supports over 25 dance modes, ranging from hip-hop to breakdancing to ballroom and other couples dances. There’s even a Story Mode unlocked at level 6 where you can take part in a long story line, which can branch off to different endings depending on your performance. Once mode and music are selected in the room, you can play with up to 5 other players to test your groove.


The Dance Hall is the fun part of the game or, in my case, the utterly humiliating portion. I watched as my hosts busted moves like Patrick Swayze’s multi-jointed offspring. Being a newb wallflower myself, the best I could do was watch. Some of the moves got considerably more complicated as the song progressed. All in all, though, it was good fun, and when I was able to complete a move or two, it was similar to that feeling you get on a golf course when you hit that one really good, long drive, the one that keeps you coming back. Audition is not unlike that. When you’re able to get your swerve on it feels and looks fantastic and it becomes hard to resist going back to the Studio to practice more so you can really bring your game to the next match. Keep in mind, too, that there are over 150 songs to choose from, many of which are fully licensed commercial tunes.

So, is there a market for this game in North America? I think so. It’s not going to be comprised of pudgy 32-year-old desk jockeys, but I can see the younger, hip generation eating it up. From tweens to twenty-somethings, there’s fun to be had. And maybe I’m a bit out of my element with this one, but just between us I do, on rare occasions, indulge myself for a few minutes and live vicariously through my avatar, remembering my college days of clubbing. The game is F2P with optional microtransactions, so if you’re hungerin’ to let off some virtual steam, there’s no reason not to give it a shot yourself.

You can sign up and download the client at Redbana’s Audition website found at http://audition.redbana.com. Just remember, mature players like me should be sure to keep some BENGAY handy if they’re going to be playing long.