Dirty Dancing is very much a “chick flick,” but I’ll admit to it being a guilty pleasure. I mean, who doesn’t love shouting out, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” during the ending of the movie? Or what about that final dance number? One of the lyrics to the song during that final production number is “I’ve had the time of my life” – sadly, I can’t say the same for the Dirty Dancing game. It’s got a lot to offer, but regretfully it’s more a poor copycat than anything else.

I will give the game one credit – it uses its license fairly well. For the most part, depending on what game or activity you are doing, you’ll feel the essence of the original Dirty Dancing movie all around. As you start the game and create your character, for example, fans will instantly be familiar with the music that was taken straight from the movie. The game also uses the license to influence many of its games, such as one game that has you trying to balance and walk on a log…just like Baby had to do. Meanwhile, images from the movie are used in special ways, such as placing the actual characters faces on playing cards during one of the minigames, or the coolest one yet, giving you a video puzzle with an actual clip from the movie, which will play in its entirety if you’re able to put the jigsaw puzzle together.

As mentioned, you start the game by creating your character, which can be either male or female, and then you are given a few rudimentary changes you can make; I always try to make characters as close to my own appearance as possible, but there simply aren’t enough pieces to make my cartoon avatar look like me. After a bit of introductory story and being introduced to your cabin, you’re then able to go and compete in a handful of challenges that are already open, though there are more options that are closed until you have the money to open them, which it turns out you get rather easily so they’ll all be open in no time at all.

The problem with Dirty Dancing is that it’s essentially a casual game that throws together all the different casual games out there together into one package. It might sound great to have all these games under one roof – so to speak – but the games just aren’t as polished as they can be found individually elsewhere.

You’ll start out with a search game where you are given a dressing room setting and a bunch of junk thrown around the place. The game will then give you a list of objects you need to find, needing to amount a certain monetary amount to complete the level. The game is actually pretty hard, more so because it’s hard to make out some of the objects the game is asking you for. One interesting thing about the search game is the fact that there are drawers you need to open in some cases to find the object you are looking for, but before you can get in there you need to find the key for that drawer.

Another early game is a Diner Dash like game where you have guests coming in and you must manage your bellhops so they get everyone checked in, checked out, have their rooms cleaned, and get them their vehicle from the valet. The game isn’t very hard, as all you do is click on people in the order they appear; there isn’t much gameplay here, because it seems no matter what you do a customer is always waiting.

A few of the other games that seem oh so similar is a match three game where you have to slide rows and columns to make matches, but being mindful of later flies that will make it so you can’t drag that column; there is a puzzle game where you need to slide dancer pieces around a board so you can move a melon through the exit point; and there is a standard pinball game as well that only has a Dirty Dancing theme through some of the music associated to the board. The game also includes a log walking game where you have to keep your balance, being mindful of jumping fish, wind gusts, and knots on the log. There is a trivia game featuring questions about the movie, which will stump all but the diehard fans. A video jigsaw puzzle game is also part of the group, where the final result will give you a clip from the movie.

But wait, where is the dancing you say? The dancing comes in the form of a point and click game, which acts sort of like a slower version of Elite Beat Agents. As the song plays, you’ll need to center your mouse’s circle icon above the counting down image on the stage, and when the meter gets in the green section, you left click – doing so makes you mimic completing the dance step, though there is no actual on-screen dancing anywhere to be seen. I’m a huge fan of the Elite Beat Agents game and the two Japanese versions, but the mode here is just too slow for the most part, but more importantly it’s too loose in regards to trying to get your mouse over the icon and centered properly.

Like most casual games, as you complete the early stages, things slowly get more and more complicated, and Dirty Dancing is no different. The early match three game levels, for example, don’t feature any of the later flies that make the game harder and harder as you go. If you’re playing pinball, you’ll find that the point total you need to reach keeps getting higher and higher the more levels you play. Each game in Dirty Dancing is treated this way, so even though you might not like one game, at least you can play one of the ones you do over and over at more difficult levels.

As you complete levels in the different games, you’ll get money that you’ll be able to spend on things such as locked games, but you’ll also be able to buy items to dress up your virtual summer house, being able to outfit it with many different goods and accessories to really dress it out. It’s pretty easy to earn money in the game by playing games and then buying goods and place them around, but it just doesn’t feel all that fun; if you’re one of those people who love playing The Sims and laying out your home perfectly, however, you might just find yourself enjoying this mode more than the average person.

Graphically the game looks decent, but there isn’t anything that stands out about it since most of the stuff is hand-drawn. The game looks its worst when it tries to go more for a 3D look, such as the log walking game and the pinball to a degree. The game sounds remarkably well, however, featuring not only a good bit of music from the movie, but some good sounds in general, such as clanking plates, stepping feet, cheering crowds, and other noises. The only place where the game suffers in terms of audio is when it comes to the video jigsaw puzzles, as the audio of the completed clips isn’t very loud or of a good quality either.

Dirty Dancing has a lot of games in its package, but none of the ones you can find here are any better than you can find elsewhere as a solo product…here they’re just nicely collected together for you and it would be cheaper to buy this game than all the games imitated in here individually. Dirty Dancing isn’t a bad game, it’s just not very original, and if I had the choice between playing the game or watching the movie, I’d pick the movie every time.

Rating:
Our Scoring System