I'll admit it: I was a little girl once.
A little girl who not only played "Super Mario Bros" and watched "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" but also one who played with Barbies and loved sappy romance flicks... like "Dirty Dancing."
My sisters and I would try to re-enact that final, epic scene in the movie, where "Baby" Houseman would run into Patrick Swayze, er... Johnny Castle, and he'd lift her up into the air like a soaring bird (it's a good thing we had pillows). It was a classic coming-of-age story. We watched it so much, the VHS tape broke.
So when a build of the "Dirty Dancing the Game" for the PC came to my mailbox last week for me to preview, my first thought was that it would be great for my nieces, who are now around the age I was when I first fell in love with that movie. But I hadn't seen the film in years, and I tried to remember what it was actually about... a timid girl going to summer camp and coming out a full-fledged woman, de-virginized by her dance instructor and harnessing the uncanny ability to undulate sexually, shamelessly in front of her family and friends. And wasn't there an illegal abortion in there somewhere? (My 7 year-old mind must've blocked that out entirely.)
With that, I figured I should give the game a whirl. For nostalgia's sake. And for the sake of my nieces, who would potentially play this game. Twenty years after the film's release, would the game take me back in time? How would it incorporate the more mature themes in the movie? What I found was quite different than what I expected...
After I installed the game, a familiar thumping started at the introductory screen. It was the opening beats of "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes. The game's fact sheet promises that "Be My Baby" and "The Time of My Life," the original tunes from the Oscar-winning soundtrack, would be included. So far I'd only heard "Be My Baby" and the grating-after-three-times-in-a-row "Kellerman's Anthem," which played while I hastily made my avatar. I settled on a yellowy-skinned, hour glass-shaped avatar with a white dress, red hair and almond eyes. The choices were limited, but it didn't matter: you were supposed to look like the original or some ethnically vague form of Baby Houseman (or Johnny Castle, for the guys). Good enough for me. I started the game.
"Summer of 1963. Before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came. ... It was our last vacation before I will be out on my own. I wonder what the summer will bring?" The game is narrated via text that I clicked through on the bottom of the screen between different animated stills. "Welcome to the resort. Here's the Camp Map. Use it to navigate around the grounds and find all the exciting activities." I wondered what "exciting activities" were in store.
First, I learned of "Camp Dollars," the in-game spending money. I could use it to decorate my cabin. My cabin was completely empty, and I had zero currency to start with. I was told I can go around to different areas and earn Camp Dollars by "playing the games." Mini-games, that is. Each location on the "Camp Map" is a mini-game. I was also reminded that there's dance contest I should totally enter (once I learned the right moves of course).
I first clicked on "Bellboy Bedlam." Would this be a hot romp with Camp Kellerman's beefy bellboys? Actually, no. Here, Baby (or my avatar, imaginatively named "Tracey") was put to work earning those "Camp Dollars." Mama needs a brand new vanity for the cabin! The logic here is that you walk in and the guy the front desk decides to take a break: "Here we provide the best service to our guests. Hey why don't you give it a try, while I'm on break? What could it hurt? ... Just hold down the fort for a while." Uh, sure?
So here, it's essentially a time management game. I was supposed to man the hotel reception desk by assigning bellboys to check guests in and out of the hotel, and have them escort guests into and out of the rooms. And oh, I had to make sure the rooms were clean after a guest checked out. Or something. There were many rules to read, and like an impatient cut-scene skipper, I clicked through the instructions until the end. It's a casual game, right? I could just figure it out. The last note warned: "If too many guests are ignored, you FAIL. When enough guests are satisfied, you WIN."
Sure, sure. I started playing, and the first level was a cinch. I just clicked the bellboys so that they helped each guest and cleaned the rooms. Not hard. But each level got harder and harder. Within 30 seconds of the third level, there was a traffic jam of angry hotel guests waiting to check in and out, and all the rooms were a mess. Casual? I'm breaking a sweat. I was slightly confused. I still somehow made $5000. I cashed out there, and moved on.
Next, I tried "Breakneck Buffet," which sounds more like a wrestling move than a fun mealtime. Again, Baby was put to work, this time clearing dishes from the table. It's a puzzle game. I dragged rows of plates, vertically or diagonally to match three or more to remove them. It's similar to "Yoshi's Cookie" or more recently, "Pokemon Trozei!" After two quick levels of that, I had 12,000 bucks. Sweet.
Then I played the "Talent Show Search," which I thought might involve some sort of dancing. But alas, not yet. To help out with the talent show (and earn Camp Dollars, of course), I needed to find a list of objects in a prop-cluttered room. It's akin to the "Photo Hunt" that I often spend my dollars on at New York City bars, but instead of pointing out differences in photos of nearly nude Playboy or Playgirl rejects, I had to find objects like a machete, margarita glass, cannon, pirate ship drawing, sequined dress and handcuffs (kinky). The weird thing about the search was that there was no hint button, so you pretty much had to memorize where all the items were until you found them all under the time limit. Regardless, I played every level (I was obsessed with "Where's Waldo" as a kid), ignored Totilo's IMs and earned about 20,000 Camp Dollars.
With my abundance of Camp Dollars, I decided to decorate the cabin. I bought a bed called the "Ideal Bed" (I spared no expense), a bearskin rug and a television, which I promptly placed by the poolside. I also bought a watermelon... for $500. Just because.
I was three mini-games in. Note that I still hadn't done any dirty dancing yet.
Where were the real-life likenesses of the movie's stars? I found them in "Pinocle Mahjong," a card-matching game that has actors Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Jerry Orbach and even Wayne Knight's (Newman!) faces on the cards. There is also "Video Jigsaw," a puzzle of a particular live-action movie scene; once you put the pieces together, you're rewarded with a 10-second clip movie clip. And for the real fans out there, there's a trivia game that tests you on "Dirty Dancing" factoids. Though I haven't seen the movie in years, I answer the first level's 20 questions with ease. "Who said the line, 'Nobody puts Baby in a corner?'" (Johnny, of course.)
I finally decided to go to the "Dance Contest" icon. There, I was able to learn the different dance moves -- Tango, Mambo, Samba, Rumba, Merengue -- all for a price. Luckily, my account was overflowing with Camp Dollars so I was able to buy all the moves I wanted, except for one (which I'm guessing was the final dance move performed during the movie's dramatic ending). Each dance move had three tiers of difficulty. Footsteps would appear on a virtual dance floor with numbers marking them in ascending order. Each footstep had a circular meter which goes from yellow to green to red. I had to click the footstep precisely when they were in the green zone. Miss and you stumble; your confidence goes down. After I mastered the Tango, I decided to call it quits.
There were a few other mini-games that I didn’t have a chance to try – "Melon Mayhem," "Log Balance" and "Pinball."
So far, "Dirty Dancing" has a nice variety of mini-games that span the range of popular casual genres -- making it great for anyone who hasn't seen the film (minus the trivia portion). But while a few songs, some likenesses and movie tie-ins are there, I still have some questions: Why did Baby have to work? Why did she want to learn how to dance?
Maybe the game will come together once I have a chance to play it more. I hope it incorporates more of the movie's storyline that made "Dirty Dancing" so memorable to begin with. Otherwise, this game is getting put in the corner. (Sorry.)
See for yourself when "Dirty Dancing the Game" comes Stateside in February.
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