In a few weeks I will be receiving a top of the line dance pad for DDR.
I used to regularly play at an arcade, but it has become harder and
harder for me to make it there on a regular basis. Since the metal
arcade dance pad is very nice, and the inexpensive soft dance pads for
home use are disappointing, I knew that I would have to shell out an
unseemly amount of money for a metal pad for a PS2. Because it took a
lot of time to sift through the various products and reviews to
assemble my home DDR system, I thought it might be useful to
consolidate the information here.

Contents

• Soft Dance Pads
• Hard Dance Pads
• DDR Games for Consoles

Soft Dance Pads

Soft pads are definitely not as responsive as hard pads, and you may
have problems with them sliding on the floor as you play. The RedOctane
Ignition claims to solve the problem where you can’t tell if you are
pressing an arrow button or some other part of the pad. Soft pads are
probably best for DDR neophytes and children.

• RedOctane Ignition $110
  DDRFreak.com Review

Hard Dance Pads

Hard pads can cost several hundred dollars more than soft pads, but
they will do a much better job at registering quickly repeated steps.
Most of the hard pads promote the fact that the arrow buttons move
noticeably when stepped on as opposed to the rest of the pad, so you
know if you are in the correct position on the pad. The Cobalt Flux by
default does not have movable buttons, but it now has a $30 add-on to
give you that tactile feedback. Most of the hard pads received very
good reviews on their button responsiveness, but the Cobalt Flux was
the only one that is practically unbreakable. I really don’t want to be
continually buying repair parts for my dance pad. If only little people
will be using the dance pad, most of the hard pads will be completely
satisfactory. Mayflash has some cool hard pads with the a bar like the
arcade, which can be very useful if you lose your balance or are just
dog tired. Unfortunately, it was hard for me to gauge the quality of
the Mayflash pads, since they seemed to be marketing under different
names and at least some of the models are prone to being cracked.

• RedOctane Afterburner $200
  DDRFreak.com Forum
• Metal Arcade-like Pads made by MayFlash, a TigerGame brand.
  • TX-1000 $170
  • TX-2000 with rail $220
    DDRFreak Forum
  • TX-4000 $250
  • TX-6000 with rail $340
  • Stores with Mayflash products, rebranded products, or oddly similar dance pads:
    • Delivers to European Union:
      http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-2a-70-u21.html
    • Delivers to US:
      http://gamesoftinc.com/DDRPads.asp
      http://www.lik-sang.com
      http://www.buynshop.com/productinfo/44/VG-DDRXBPDMX/
      http://www.ddrgame.com/
• Cobalt Flux $300
  GamesAreFun.com Review
  DDR Freak Forum
  The Cobalt Flux’s buttons do not move to provide tactile feedback unless you add this accessory.

DDR Games for Consoles

I chose the PS2 over the Xbox, since it has several more games. DDR Extreme and DDR Extreme 2 for the PS2 also support the EyeToy video camera, which may be an interesting twist on a popular game. The PS2 also has a couple of In The Groove games which are DDR clones, which mainly provides you different songs to play. There is also the Pump It Up Exceed game (Forum) for the PS2 and Xbox, but it’s five button layout does not work with many DDR pads.