Dance Factory (PlayStation 2)

In DANCE FACTORY, the song-loading functionality is at center stage -- and performs brilliantly. Pick any CD from your collection and let Dance Factory generate the collection of arrows that indicate when and where to step.

The real fun comes with raiding your music collection for wacky picks. Dancing to Jay-Z was predictably fun, but who would have thought the John Spencer Blues Explosion would make a great dance-pad match? Slow-grooving to Ravi Shankar was like doing tai chi, but the Squirrel Nut Zippers actually delivered a bit of swing. Your options are only as limited as your CD library.

Dance Factory has a few minor bells and whistles: a basic fitness mode that counts calories, an endurance mode that lets players dance through an entire CD, and unlockable avatars called "creatures" that are lame and have no dance floor flair. The only real drawbacks to the game are its cheap presentation (visuals aren't much more than a glorified screensaver) and occasional badly generated dance. A dance editor solves the latter problem, but unfortunately you'll just have to dance your way through the low-rent package. In the end, you'll be boogying too hard to notice.