Recommend me a music game...

[crux]

Your list is sorely missing Bemani titles. Considering the games in your list, it seems like a deliberate choice (juding by Pump It Up but no DDR, or even In the Groove, which isn't even Bemani), but in case it's not, Beatmania and Pop'n Music are both great choices. I actually wouldn't particularly recommend Pop'n Music without the full ASC, which is expensive, but it's one of the best rhythm games out there if you have drive (or money) to make it work. Beatmania is the godfather of rhythm games with good reason and is still one of the most difficult - and subsequently rewarding - rhythm games around. There's also DrumMania and GuitarFreaks (I know three out of the four games I've named have already been mentioned, but I can emphasize, damn it), both of which are great - but may not be worth the import cost if you're happy with Rock Band when you get around to it. The cheap DrumMania drums suck and good ones are expensive, and GuitarFreaks doesn't even have a cheap guitar unless you're willing to make due with modding a Guitar Hero guitar.

Patapon was a novel concept but by the end of the game it became very repetitive and monotonous in order to make progress. I think the RPG elements were unnecessary and the game should have been purely arcade gameplay with musical beats for controls. Instead it involved grinding bosses for materials for a stronger army. Hopefully Patapon 2 improves on the original's mistakes, but we'll see.

Also, dear god, no one mentioned SAMBA! I'll mention it twice to help pump some oxygen back into the room. Samba de Amigo! Samba de Amigo!

I mentioned In the Groove up above, but I'll mention it again since someone recommended PUI over DDR. In the Groove improves on the DDR formula in a lot of ways and the second In the Groove even more so. The second will never see a release on home consoles since Konami shut 'em down, but if you have access to Stepmania with a pad, get some In the Groove 2 charts. It's worth it.

The Ouendan games are great, and in fact I'd much rather recommend Ouendan over Elite Beat Agents if you're ok with importing. The music isn't great in any of the titles, but quite a few of the songs in Elite Beat Agent aren't even tolerable. And there aren't that many songs in any of the games. Rhythm Heaven is also good if you like music games with a bit of WarioWare flavor.

I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting... but how many rhythm games does one man need? Beatmania alone can keep you occupied for months if not years if you want to get great at it.

[MrPopo]

I mentioned In the Groove up above, but I'll mention it again since someone recommended PUI over DDR. In the Groove improves on the DDR formula in a lot of ways and the second In the Groove even more so. The second will never see a release on home consoles since Konami shut 'em down, but if you have access to Stepmania with a pad, get some In the Groove 2 charts. It's worth it.

In The Groove was DDR for bar rapists who didn't think Paranoia Survivor Max Oni was hard enough and hated J-pop. There is just a fundamental difference between what you can do with step charts on the four DDR panels than what you can do on the five PIU panels. And the difference is even more pronounced if you get into doubles.

Also, I saw someone mention Korg DS-10. It's interesting, but don't think of it as a game. It's a music creation tool that is limited enough to be easily approachable to a casual person.

[Ack]

In The Groove was DDR for bar rapists who didn't think Paranoia Survivor Max Oni was hard enough and hated J-pop.

Well damn.

[J T]

Yeah, I haven't really gotten into DDR because I bought Pump It Up and I haven't mastered that. Nothing against DDR though. I just got Pump It Up w/ mat for $20 new, and I felt like that satisfied my need for a dancing game, so I never bothered with DDR on a home console.

Things like Korg's DS-10 are definitely worth mentioning... although I don't really need the DS-10 because I have the Korg MS-2000. I like non-game music things too (thus the Magix Music Maker in my collection). I used to love making tunes in Mario Paint too, but I don't have that game anymore.

For the music makers, here's a fun and simple flash music tool:
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

[MrPopo]

In The Groove was DDR for bar rapists who didn't think Paranoia Survivor Max Oni was hard enough and hated J-pop.

Well damn.

Yeah, I have a bit of a feud with In The Groove, since in college it completely changed the mentality of myst of my DDR friends. It went from a group of skilled people having fun and impressing random strangers to a group of people obsessively trying to master ever song in the game.

Me, I topped off at Max 300 double expert and was happy for that achivement. Now I stick to Pump and its K-pop goodness.

[Sik 07]

if you like gh you should make some gh customs disks theres alot of fun charts and challanging ones

[crux]

Actually, I recommend In the Groove (particularly In the Groove 2) because many of the charts are far superior in design to many DDR charts, which have long since seemed uninspired. D-Code, for instance, is a better song and a better chart than likely anything I've played in DDR (I haven't played DDR since the first Extreme, so I might be behind the curve). I just enjoy the songs a great deal more - regardless of the inclusion of a bar or not.

I'm well aware of Pump it Up and I didn't say anything against it. I have trouble enjoying a lot of the music in the series, but the pad layout certainly has better symmetry for the feet and stepping games could certainly use more buttons (one of the reasons I strayed away from them). If I had a better pad I'd likely play it more often.

[Erik_Twice]

I don't think you'll enjoy ITG after PIU. It's easier, more limited on charts and the music is not as good. ITG music always felt really generic to me and very "love it or hate it". It's also very heavy on the same genres while PIU has a good deal of everything from classical to rock so unless you like electronic music you are better of sticking with PIU.

Unfortunatedly you can't really play a lot of PIU with a soft pad. Try to fix it to a hard surface like wood. Not ideal but it's not really worth getting a good pad because going to the arcade is cheaper and you can play doubles, an important part of PIU. I did that with a sof pad and I was able to play confortably almost any song after a bit of practise.

I can't stop recommending the Ouendan games and EBA. I have yet to find any other game when I can play the same 20 songs all the time and love them even if I can get a perfect score. Normally you would get bored with only a fistful of songs but the game mechanics and the quality of the songs on the japanese versions will make your screen suffer quite a lot. EBA is more limited music-wise because a gap in hard difficulty that makes some songs too easy to be fun (Makes no Difference for example) and because some songs are not very good. However you will play the other songs so much I think it's really worth getting it, specially since you can find it really cheap.

Also you never get bored of the main characters. And if you do you have no soul.

However if I had to recommend a game to you it would be Beatmania IIDX. You are already know how to play a music game so you are not going to be that raped becuase of the wall-like difficulty curve. It has 7 buttons and a turntable so it takes some dedication to get used to the controller so I wouldn't recommend it to a newcomer to the genre.

Beatmania is a bit like the pinnacle of music games if you ask me. The difficulty starts somewhat low (But you MUST really get used to the controller because you are going to be raped until you do) and ends so fucking high that it will take YEARS to "beat the game". To put it simply. The hardest GH song has like 6 notes per second. The hardest Beatmania song has 26 notes per second. And hell no, I can't beat it XD

However having a high difficulty curve would not be something good if the game were not enjoyable. The music selection is great, specially the latest titles, and really varied. Also since it's a long running series even genres not used very much end up with a good deal of songs. However if you are looking for rock or metal, while represented, you are going to find only a few songs.

The general "spirit" of the game is a bit hardcore. There's no song preview and no fanct animations. Well, there's videos but you will not be able to watch them while playing. Some of them are totally awesome (Blind Justice , Xepher) and some directly suck (The generic ones). The timing is incredibly strict and the system used to determine if you pass a song or not is very harsh. You can pass a song in GH, hitting only a 66% of the notes and you pass a song in PIU once you hit an 85% of the notes. However when you really can pass a song in BM you are hitting almost a 90% of the notes and a good deal of them must be Greats because "Good" does not add to your bar nor your score. Also note that you actually play the music in BM and if you miss a note you will not hear it. This makes for a deeper experience.

The variety of songs and notecharts gives you this "I FEEL POWERFUL" feeling, like when you play a hard non-gimmick song in PIU like Moonlight or Pump me Amadeus. You want to beat the song like if there's no tomorrow and you feel good not only passing it but just playing it. It's like Contra. You do not laugh with Contra, you focus on the game, you beat the enemies and when you finnish playing you say "man, that was great".

If you want to play Beatmania you can start with just a controller (The Japanese are more durable but if you can score an american bundle it will be cheaper) since there are simulators around and you can always burn a copy a DVD to see what gams do you like most.

Pop'n'Music is not worth it without an arcade controller because the home version is way too small and has a very weird feel. It kind of ruins the experience and the difficulty. Since arcade controlers are expensive as hell I cannot recommend Pop'n.

You can play GF and DM with Rock Band controllers using DXTmania and see if you like it. GF is a bigger, harder version of GH don't get fooled by it's three buttons. Drummania, being keysounded and having a real drumkit as controller, is the definitive music game when it comes to drums. It has amazing charts and if you like the drums in GH or RB you will love DM.

Hope that helps and remember you can always check youtube to see what the music is like.

EDIT: I actually found a better comparasion. In GH you feel like a rock star. In Beatmania you feel like Beethoven playing his 5th shymphony.

[MrPopo]

I don't think you'll enjoy ITG after PIU. It's easier, more limited on charts and the music is not as good. ITG music always felt really generic to me and very "love it or hate it". It's also very heavy on the same genres while PIU has a good deal of everything from classical to rock so unless you like electronic music you are better of sticking with PIU.

Big agree here. About 75% of ITG is techno (might be house or something, but it all falls under the heavy synth style to my ear).

Unfortunatedly you can't really play a lot of PIU with a soft pad. Try to fix it to a hard surface like wood. Not ideal but it's not really worth getting a good pad because going to the arcade is cheaper and you can play doubles, an important part of PIU. I did that with a sof pad and I was able to play confortably almost any song after a bit of practise.

I'll second this suggestion. There really aren't any good third-party hard pads for Pump like how DDR has the Cobalt Flux. Technically the CF works with Pump but the corners aren't the right size, which really screws with you when you get to the higher skill leves.

And the doubles system on Pump is one of the reasons I switched. It's free and integrated into the main game. So you can do a set of three songs with the last two being doubles and hte first one singles.

[CaptainWeasel]

Actually, I recommend In the Groove (particularly In the Groove 2) because many of the charts are far superior in design to many DDR charts, which have long since seemed uninspired. D-Code, for instance, is a better song and a better chart than likely anything I've played in DDR (I haven't played DDR since the first Extreme, so I might be behind the curve). I just enjoy the songs a great deal more - regardless of the inclusion of a bar or not.

This. In the Groove took DDR's style and turned it into something better. Sure, the songs aren't well known, but that doesn't hinder the game because most of them are very catchy. The layout, the style, the arrows (cel arrows > *), stepcharts, all reign over DDR.

However, I still prefer Pump it Up. The diagonal arrows allow for more clean movements that feel more natural after a two minute song. The hardest songs are RIDICULOUS. Crazy is difficult enough, and don't get me started on Nightmare. Exceed 2 is a great mix, and AFAIK, most Chuck E. Cheeses around here are outfitted with them. I'm kind of sad I dropped out of the game, because it was probably the most fun I've had looking like and idiot.