It's a sad, sad day when your child whips your butt in sports, math problems or computer games.  Alas, that day has arrived early for me – coinciding with the arrival of Nintendo's new Dance, Dance Revolution: Mario Mix.

The game comes complete with a familiar dance pad – which replaces the standard Nintendo controller.  And unlike previous DDR games, it actually has a story  mode where you play either Luigi or Mario and try to save the world through dance steps and more.

To say it has changed my life would be an understatement.  My son and I typically get up and spend an hour or so swatting bad guys on one of our many Zelda games.  It's a satisfying, albeit low impact way to start the day.

Not anymore.  These days we get up and dance our little tushies off.  And I've discovered something even worse than sweating before coffee – being smacked down by a snot nose six year old while sweating before coffee. 

Luckily the story mode can be easily defeated in about an hour.  But the mini games – including a whack-a-mole clone, catch the falling bananas and more offer seemingly never-ending replay value for my first grader.

The folks at 1up.com didn't like it too much, but they're jaded.  It's a nifty introduction, for younger kids, to the whole dance, dance revolution.  I just wish my son would tire of the game – I'm exhausted!

Jennifer DeLeo's comment: It's interesting that you brought our attention to the DDR game, Jim, because I've been trying to figure out which dance game is better: DDR or Pump It Up: Exceed. My brother's a break/hip hop dancer, and I know that he'd get a kick out of a game like this, although he'd probably break it considering he's more skilled than any game. I found several reviews (like this one) that believe Pump It Up: Exceed is better than DDR because it adds more tricks, has a better song list, and is harder to play. I plan on buying this for him for the holidays, so I'll report back and let you and our readers know which one is indeed the better dance off.

Robyn Peterson's comment: Jim, if it makes you feel any better, my wife kicks my butt every weekend when we play the grown-up versions: Dance, Dance Revolution and Karaoke Revolution.  And you know what?  I'm tired of them too.  Oh shoot.  I hope she doesn't read GearLog today.