Some of the most positive have come from mainstream media rather than gaming specialists, but even the latter have disagreed greatly about both the concept and its execution: On BBC radio Eurogamer editor Johnny Minkley enthused: "This is brilliant!

- BBC National Radio 1, Sarah Cox Show, Tuesday 15 August 2006 The November 2006 review by Mark Blackmore, in BBC Focus magazine, was yet more excited: "Without hyperbole, this is the best thing to happen in all the universe, throughout history, since we emerged from the primordial ooze... if you've never danced to Morrisey while having your PS tell you you're a big fat sod, then you've missed out on one of the definitive human experiences".

Even Dance Factory comes with just five saccharine offerings, but then turns the genre on its head quite magnificently by allowing players to import their own CD tracks for fancy footwork treatment.

The package also boasts some nifty secondary ideas to help to extend the title's replayability, such as a Fitness mode for calorie counters.

Dance Factory can take any CD you put into the PS2 and transfer all or any of the songs to danceable tracks - and I'm not talking cheap, non-rhythmic versions.

After experimenting with tunes from Rage Against The Machine, Air, Metallica, Sway and even a bit of classic old-school house, it would seem Dance Factory cannot be beaten.

Gaming Age awarded the game 83%, braving comparisons with DDR and thereby contradicting other reviews, saying: "No matter where your loyalties lie in the DDR world, there is no denying that Dance Factory is taking the right steps (no pun intended) in designing new ideas that the group of thinkers at Konami haven't come up with yet.... What Dance Factory brings to the table is new features that improve the genre, along with recreating already popular and proven modes for fans of the series".

Its feature set would really do better on a machine with a built-in hard drive, so you could burn tracks to it instead of endlessly swapping out CDs.

Gaming Horizon scored it 46% and said: "Despite the fact that Konami’s series has a static playlist, you’re better off buying another version of DDR than dealing with this piece of crap called Dance Factory.