The songlist is better than the original's, there's more old licenses that used to be in DDR, they managed to get the old Adult Swim theme (D-Code), there's a new arrow type that added some more variety to the charts, and the boss songs are as tough and unique from the boss songs that were in pre-SuperNOVA DDR as ever. It was a pretty solid sequel, and I would have given it a 4. But...does anyone play the officials?

After this game was released, Konami v. Roxor ended up getting settled: Roxor could no longer make In The Groove, In The Groove machines, upgrade kit or dedicated, could no longer be made, and Konami would own the rights to the ITG name specifically so In The Groove 3 can never happen. However, there was one thing Roxor was allowed to do: make revisions to the machines that were already available. The update they ended up doing post-lawsuit, R21, allowed people to play their own Stepmania files from a USB as long as they weren't more than 2 minutes long (they would release another revision, R23, to make sure of that). The world would never be the same.

So yeah, it's Stepmania with all of the fanmade content the machine could read from a USB stick on an actual DDR cabinet! Meme songs, songs that would have been in ITG3, your songs, my songs, even songs from DDR, anything goes! If your arcade had the amazing Andamiro-made ITG2 cabinet, that was even better. If I had one closer to me, I would have played this a lot.

I have every reason to believe this would have never happened if Konami didn't sue ITG out of existence, as none of the spiritual sequels have custom song support. It did leave one to wonder what an In The Groove 3, 4, or 5 would have been like, but now we have StepmaniaX, and that's a good enough answer.

Not a bad mix to start on, but I was already spoiled with the actual 3rd Mix, so this felt like the downgraded version compared to that.

The only things this game had to offer that weren't already in the imported 3rd Mix Ver Korea 2 machines were Stomp To My Beat, Love This Feelin', Trip Machine Luv Mix, the Beginner charts, and a handful of Double Maniac charts. If an arcade had 3rd Mix, there was almost no reason to make the "downgrade" outside of being able to get official tech support for it, supporting the potential for future easier-to-buy DDR games, or abiding by the "for Japan only" disclaimer screen. It wasn't too uncommon, but it was not as desired.

The timeless journey of a dog's quest to romance a sunflower. He has to learn karate, how to drive, how to make money, and how to cook, all through the power of rap. Definitely a game that sticks out among the countless shooters and sports games that were on Playstation 1 demo discs, that's for sure.

While there are earlier rhythm games, this is the earliest one I could recommend playing mostly due to its quirky sense of humor. One concept in the Parappa series that never really made it to future rhythm games is that one doesn't have to just repeat what the teacher says; it rewards you for freestyling to the beat. It doesn't have much replay value after you experienced the story and experienced the Cool modes, but it is still an experience nonetheless. Sadly, it never got a port that took HDTV lag in account and the timing is pretty strict, so keep that in mind if you get stuck at Cheep Cheep.

Here it is, Unreal Engine 0.

On the surface, it’s a primitive game with text based graphics with a smiley face that shoots various letters. However, there’s an extensive editor that allows you to make and share your own levels with simple ways to program “objects”. This led to a lot of different games to play within this game. People have come up with very creative ways to push this engine to its limits, and it’s simple enough that it was a lot of people’s first time making a game.

There’s a better, if more complicated, version of this kind of thing called MegaZeux, but there’s still some charm in the original.

The mega game of the mid 90s. So many wads, so many level editing tools, and people are still using this engine to do crazy things to this very day. The base game is good, bloody fun too, being a great update to Wolfenstein 3D with simulated verticality, a mini-map, monsters that will infight if they accidentally hit each other, and weapon variety that isn't just gun and gun that shoots faster. It gave us the BFG9000, enough said. I would recommend playing this on a source port these days for modern controls.