While DDR/ITG will always have a special place in my heart, DrumMania probably has to take the award for the most fun rhythm game. It may have something to do with helping one fufill the fantasy of being a rockstar... certainly, it does a better job than, say, GuitarFreaks or GuitarHero &emdash; with these guitar games, it just doesn't feel like the real thing, and there's a nagging sensation in the back of your head you're just "wasting" time, playing a video game. Not so with DrumMania. When you play DrumMania, you feel like you're really acquiring the skills you would need to effectively play the drums. And you are. Sort of.

There are a couple of differences between DM and "real", acoustic drums. First of all, a real kit typically has a lot more pieces. The most important missing element, IMHO, is the lack of a hihat pedal. If you're a DM player coming to an acoustic set, the hihat pedal is probably going to be the part that'll throw you off the most. When DrumMania V was still in beta, I prayed that one of the key new features would be a hihat pedal. Unfortunately, those prayers went unanswered.

After the hihat pedal, the next most jarring difference is that there's a distinction between a ride cymbal and a crash cymbal in a real kit, but they two are sort of merged together in DrumMania. And then there are people who feel it'd be cool if DM added a third tom tom (or floor tom?), but now we're getting out of the "Doesn't feel like a drum kit" and more into "It'd be nice to have".

Even if the next iteration of DrumMania added all these extra pieces, the DM machine would still "feel" different. The DM pads are made of rubber, and so they have a different bounce than an acoustic set. The DM pad has about the same bounce as you'd get from a softcover book, whereas "real" snares and tom-toms have a greater bounce than even hardcover books. The bounce might not make much of a different at the easier levels, but in the more complex and higher-tempo songs, they make a big difference. たまゆら, for example, is way easier on an acoustic set than on DrumMania. Assuming you have the coordination and rhythm down pat, the only barrier for playing たまゆら's snare pattern on DM is your lack of endurance, forcing the sticks up and down. On an acoustic set, it's nearly effortless, as the sticks automatically go down due to gravity, and come back up due to the bounce, and so you only need to make minor adjustments, perhaps applying a 3-5 newtons of force every now and then, so that stick "falls" with the correct pattern (as opposed to merely free-falling).

And finally, there's dynamics. DrumMania doesn't model dynamics at all: if the song calls for a hit at a certain point in time, you just gotta hit the pad. Doesn't matter if you hit softly, or with vigour, as long as you hit. Keep hitting on time, and the song sounds great. On an acoustic set, dynamics makes a big difference in the sound, musicallity and feel of the song.

Doogi Doogi looks like it fixes all of these problems, 'cept the last. In addition to the pieces DrumMania simulates, it adds a hihat pedal, and second cymbal, and a third tom. Furthermore, it doesn't use the rubber pads that DrumMania an electric kits use, but the actual acoustic pieces. Yes, that means the sound is undampened, and extremely loud, but it also means the bounce is exactly the same as an acoustic set, because you are playing on an acoustic set. Each piece has a sensor attached to it to register hits.

It looks like the game can be played with two interfaces. There's a DrumMania style interface, where icons scroll from the top of the screen to the bottom, and when they arrive at the beat line, you're supposed to strike the corresponding piece. There's also a score/classical notation that looks like sheet music.

It looks like the product is still in "beta", as it was recently showed at a video conventions. Here's hoping it makes it big enough to make it's way to North America, and eventually to an arcade near me.