Achievement Preview Spotlight: Dance Central 3

This week's Achievement Preview Spotlight focuses on one of the shining beacons on the Kinect hill, Dance Central 3. While many games struggle with either shoehorning Kinect into a more "standard" game or general shoddy controls, Harmonix has really taken center stage with their dance game, providing two sterling examples of exactly what Microsoft's big bet can do. In anticipation of this Tuesday's release of their third Dance Central title, let's take a look at how you'll be shaking your groove thing... if that's what the kids are still doing.

One of the big selling points to many Kinect games is that it's a sneaky way to exercise. Playing off of that fact, the following achievement shouldn't be much of a problem for most gamers.



100 calories can be burned by doing simple things like: shopping (for 38 minutes), walking the dog (for 26 minutes... 10 minutes if you own a Border Collie), or cleaning with moderate effort (for 26 minutes), so burning 100 calories while dancing shouldn't be too taxing.

Social Networking achievements tend to be a bur under the saddle of some gamers, but consider this, in the days before TA, we had to use archaic networks like MySpace to talk about games *shudder*. The next achievement harkens back to those days... and lines Mark Zuckerberg's pocket a little more.



Fortunately, this achievement should be relatively painless and you'll only have to let a few other non-gamers know that you're becoming a better dancer through science.

Endurance challenges are always "fun". Nothing beats being forced to play a game for hours on end without a break. Without some definitive parameters, this next achievement could be a bladder buster.



Positive Spin: You might be able to start playing at 11:55pm and only have to play until 12:01am.

Negative Spin: Your neighbors might end up hating you.

Achievements that are time/day sensitive are always an easy work around. Just take your 360 offline and change the date on your console, right? Well, if that's your game, you might have to spend a few hours offline because several achievements will necessitate you doing a bit of date-monkeying... and not the fun type that involves bananas and a bow-tie for Bubbles.



Playing every day for a week doesn't sound too bad, but (without the aforementioned date-monkeying) it will be something you'll need to keep in mind.

The last achievement in this spotlight could be the white whale for the game, as someone without any rhythm or dance moves (except the white man's overbite), there's no way I could get this one.



Because I'm an old man trapped in a young(ish) man's body, I had to do a quick search for what this achievement would entail. I dug up this video:



HOW DO PEOPLE DO THAT?

Dance Central 3 is set to make you sweat starting on October 16th.

If there's an upcoming game that you'd like to see featured in the Achievement Preview Spotlight, be sure to let us know in the comments!