More than a year after the pop icon's death, Michael Jackson has a new video game on the way, one that teaches players to moonwalk, spin and slide like the King of Pop once did.
Michael Jackson The Experience, due in November for Wii, Xbox, PS3, PSP and DS (rated E10+ for ages 10 and up), lets players try to match some of his classic moves.
John Branca and John McClain, co-executors of the Michael Jackson estate, say they had been looking for a video game to showcase his legacy. (His last game, Moonwalker, in the early '90s, had him dancing to defeat "Mr. Big" and save the children.)
"The game needed to incorporate Michael's music and dance moves into the most innovative technology available, continually pushing the envelope at each turn," according to an e-mail by their press representative.
With the Wii version, you wave the wireless remote to mimic the moves of an on-screen dancer that resembles Jackson. To the right of the screen, upcoming steps scroll by, showing you where to position the remote as you shake your body down to the ground to Bad, Beat It, Billie Jean, Workin' Day and Night and The Girl Is Mine, among other hits.
The Xbox 360 version will use Microsoft's upcoming Kinect full-body control system to track the player's moves, and its camera will project the player into the game environments, all based on Jackson's videos and concerts. The PS3 version will use the motion-tracking PlayStation Move technology. (In the Wii version, up to three additional players can sing along with the dancing player, but their performance doesn't affect the score.)
The Experience continues Jackson's posthumous portfolio diversification:
•Last year's film This Is It, which documented Jackson's rehearsals for a comeback, was a global box office hit. The soundtrack went double platinum, 1.6 million copies; on video, This Is It sold more than 1.2 million.
•An album of unreleased material is due in November.
•A Cirque du Soleil show based on his music is expected to begin touring in fall 2011; a permanent show is set to open in Las Vegas in late 2012.
The video game's strength is that players will "know what it feels like to be in his shoes, performing in front of millions," says Ubisoft's Antoine Vimal Du Monteil.
To be good at the game takes talent, so fortunately, the developers have included rehearsal tutorials, says Andy Burt of GamePro magazine. The game "has the potential to be competitive in a crowded market," he says. "It will no doubt prove popular with both fans and casual listeners of his music."
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