Getting back into DDR

I put so much time and money into DDR, Easy To Dancer and Pump It Up in the early to mid 2000s. Every week I'd be down at the local Namco Arcade Station putting money into those machines. Then I bought the home versions and eventually started using Dance With Intensity and Stepmania.

By the end of 2004 I'd had my fill though and moved onto Initial D which had just made its way to my arcade. I was pretty much done with rhythm games for the next decade but now I have the itch again. It started with Final Fantasy Theatrhythm and the Project Diva games and more recently I've been playing a ton of Stepmania again. It's been fun, it's been incredibly fun.

The next step was to get a dance pad. I'm not close to an arcade unfortunately and a dance pad would be more cost effective anyway in the long run. It has to be a hard mat but finding one used in the UK is next to impossible and no one makes them new over here anymore. I did some research and the Omega GX from Precision Dance Pads came up as the best one to get. It isn't cheap though and shipping alone is $150. Then you have potential import tax on top of that and... well, It's a lot of money. I really want to get into the genre properly again though so I placed an order for one with the PS2/USB control box. I'm not sure if I'd use it on the PS2 but it would be fun to go through the entire DDR series on it and it was only a little extra.

They currently have waiting times of 6 weeks (plus shipping I assume) so it's gona take a while to get here but it will be so worth it. I just hope it doesn't get damaged on its way!