B-Boy Guide - Version 1.02 - 19 Feb 2015 - by Barticle at hotmail dot com ___________________ ____________________ _______ ________ ________ \ \ \ \ / \ \ \/ / \_______ ___ \ \________ ___ \ / \ \ / | | \ \ | | \ \ / \ \ / | |____\ \ ____ | |____\ \ / _ \ \ / / / / / / / / / \ \ \ / /_ ___ / /___/ /_ ___ / / / / / / / | | \ \ | | \ \ \ \_/ / / / ______| |____\ \ ______| |____\ \ \ / / / / / / / \ / / / / / / / \ / / / /___________________/ /___________________/ \_______/ / / __/ / 01 THE INTRO 09 THE DISPLAY / / 02 THE TITLE 10 THE MOVES / / 03 THE MENU o Move List /_________/ 04 THE LIFE o Toprock o Movebook o Footwork 12 THE STAGES o Practice o Power Moves 13 THE TUNES o Laptop o Freezes o The Tracks o Wardrobe o Special Entries o The Album 05 THE JAM o Disses and Finishing Move 14 THE CODES 06 THE MEDALS 11 THE DANCERS 15 THE END 07 THE HYPE o Jam Mode Characters o Contact 08 THE BUTTONS o Life Mode Crew Partners o Thanks .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 01 | THE INTRO s01 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' This is a guide to the 2006 Playstation 2 game B-Boy, a rhythm game which gives an authentic recreation of the Hip-Hop dance style of b-boying (breakdancing). I still remember when I first saw the game back in 2006. I've bought all my games online for many years now but I was visiting Cambridge and happened to pass through the games section in the HMV store there and I saw it on a shelf. This was the first time I even knew that the game existed so it was a nice surprise and, without hesitation, I bought it (as soon as I got home!). I was disappointed to find that there wasn't a B-Boy guide on GameFAQs, both in 2006 and again the following year when I re-played the game on my PS3 Phat.* However last year I kinda got bitten by the guide-writing bug so I've decided to set things straight and give B-Boy the guide it deserves! B-Boy was made for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) by a development studio here in the UK called FreeStyleGames.** It was released for both the PS2 and PSP in Europe and Australia in 2006 and reissued in America in 2008, and I think in Korea in 2007 too. This guide specifically covers the European PS2 version of B-Boy but I think most (if not all) of the information here should apply to all the various editions. In this guide I will use the term "b-boy" when referring to a dancer but equally I could be referring to a b-girl; it just saves me typing "b-boy or b-girl" all the time. You should certainly not infer any lack of respect or admiration for all the b-girls out there! :) To jump to any section of this document use your browser's Find function (with Ctrl+F on a PC or Cmd+F on a Mac probably) and search for the letter S followed by the two-digit section number, for example s04 to find Section 04. This guide is designed to be viewed using a monospaced (non-proportional or fixed-width) font, preferably Courier New. Some sections of the document will display incorrectly if you are using a proportional font like Times New Roman. *The first generation of PS3 consoles (Japan and US launch models) contained PS2 CPU and GPU chips which gave full backwards compatibility with all PS2 discs. The second generation (Euro launch) lacked the PS2 CPU and instead used software emulation which made it possible to run many PS2 titles (including B-Boy). All PS3 iterations since then however - including the most recent Slim and Super Slim models - will not run any PS2 game discs. **FSG have since gone on to big things, becoming part of the Activision group and producing the latest game in the Expensive Controller genre, DJ Hero! .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 02 | THE TITLE s02 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Sony should be commended for releasing this game with the title B-Boy. A lot of people (potential game buyers) will be familiar with the word "breakdancer" but not with "b-boy" so they might be missing out on a few sales. It's widely acknowledged that the terms "breakdancer" and "breakdancing" are products of the commercialisation of the scene during the 80's and consequently most practitioners today use "b-boy" and "b-boying" (or possibly "breaking") instead. I guess Sony are well aware of this from their association with the scene, for example their long-term sponsorship of the UK B-Boy Championships and affiliation with the old Breakstation studio in Shoreditch, East London. So what does the B stand for...? Well, it depends on who you ask. It could be Bad, Bronx, Boogie, Battle or Beat. In his excellent new book Foundation (Oxford University Press 2009), Joe Schloss quotes testimony in support of both "beat" and "Bronx". Most folks, though, will credit the creation of the term (and the very concept of Hip-Hop itself!) to Kool DJ Herc and he says that "b-boy" is short for "break-boy". Back in The Bronx in the early 70's, Kool Herc had the biggest soundsystem and threw the biggest parties; he'd also rap on the mic, dance and write graffiti so he practised all the elements of what would later be recognised as Hip-Hop culture. He observed that the serious dancers at his parties would wait for the instrumental break on a record before bustin' their moves on the dancefloor and this lead to him playing only the break sections, either with different records or two copies of the same one (such extended/looped drum breaks would go on to become the percussive backing of Hip-Hop music). Herc referred to these dancers as his "break-boys" or "b-boys". The term doesn't refer to the instrumental break on a record though. Instead it can be traced back to Bronx slang where someone who went crazy or wild would be described as "breaking". In interview on Israel's awesome documentary DVD 'The Freshest Kids' Kool Herc explains: "It didn't come from 'breaks' of the record. It came from... the man went, I'd say, 'go off' [...] lost his head [...] he went to a point - a *breaking* point, you know what I'm saying?". His dancers were going wild on the dancefloor so they became the "break-boys". Sorry, this is supposed to be a game guide rather than a history lesson, isn't it? Time to get back on track...! .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 03 | THE MENU s03 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' This section briefly explains the main menu of the game. It has four options... o Livin' Da Life The top option is used to play the main game in which you design your own character and take them on a journey from the Street Scene up to the dizzy* heights of the Pro Scene. When you select this option you are given two choices - New Game or Continue. You can only have one game in progress at any one time so be careful not to overwrite your save with the New Game option! Livin' Da Life mode is explained in Section 04 below. o B-Boy Jam If you fancy a quick game then this is the place for you. There are five game modes here which are played using (mostly) real b-boy characters. B-Boy Jam mode is explained in Section 05 and the playable characters are covered in Section 11. o Options Selecting this option gives you options! :) Audio Options - use this to change the language spoken by the MC (English, French, German, Spanish and Italian) plus the overall volume and individual sound levels for the MC, music and sound FX Cheats - you can input a range of cheat codes here (see Section 14) Autosave - you can turn it on or off Load a Save Game - also pretty self-explanatory Controller Vibration - turn it on or off, on either joypad (the rumble option is unavailable on PSP) o Extras This sub-menu has four choices... Tutorials - access the tutorials that teach you the basics of the game Promo Movie - play the title sequence Sync via USB - if you own the game in both formats you can transfer your B-Boy save data between a PS2 and a PSP using a USB link Credits - see who did what, and to who! Revisiting this guide almost exactly five years later, I now have a PSP and a copy of B-Boy PSP... but now my PS2 is in storage and my original PS3 died so I have a PS3 Slim model which lacks backwards compatibility and once again I am unable to test the connectivity function! However I will at least note that you need to use a "Mini-B USB" cable which is the type you use to connect the PS3 controller to the console. If your PS3 is one of the original models with backwards compatibility then it will use virtual memory cards and I assume you'll need to make sure you have the right one assigned to a slot (check Game \ Memory Card Utility in the PS3 menu). *Quite literally dizzy if you do too many headspins. :) .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 04 | THE LIFE s04 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Livin' Da Life is the "career mode" of the game. You create your own character, battle against other b-boys, learn moves from them, enter tournaments, pick up sponsor deals and gradually work your way up through the ranks. You begin in the Street Scene and, through winning tournaments and challenges, progress up to the Club Scene and finally the Pro Scene, with the difficulty increasing on the way. Before you can start playing Livin' Da Life you need to set up your character. You can select several aspects of their appearance: gender*, race, height, head, eye colour and hairstyle; if you make a male character you can also specify their build and facial hair. You can change your hair later but everything else is fixed. You can use the left stick to rotate/move your character, [L1] to zoom in and [R1] to zoom out (the same applies when changing their clothes later). A b-boy's name is very important to him - some think carefully before choosing one, many have their name given to them and a few even battle to earn the right to use it. So, you'll be wanting to give your character a cool name, right...? Well, you can't. Sorry! Your character is named "Custom" and you're stuck with it. I can only assume that you can't enter your own choice of name because then the MC wouldn't be able to announce/pronounce it, but they could at least have given us a few different options, surely? :6 The hub for Livin' Da Life mode is your apartment which is known as "The Lab". You can access the four options here by pressing [left] or [right] and selecting your movebook, the dancefloor area, your computer or the ladder leading up to the loft. Each of these options is discussed in detail below. In order to complete Livin' Da Life mode you need to win all twelve events in the Pro Scene (plus any move/sponsorship challenges remaining) and then beat the "Final Battle". Do you get any cool rewards for doing this? New moves...? Secret characters maybe...? Nope! You get a twenty-second cut-scene and the credits. And the warm glow of satisfaction, I guess! *Don't be surprised to hear the host of a tournament using male pronouns in their commentary if you're playing with a female character. I guess they didn't want to record two sets of voiceovers. .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Movebook | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' It's crucial that you understand how the Livin' Da Life mode's movebook works because this is where you choose which of your learnt moves to use and which button combos you want to assign them to. Selecting the "check out your movebook" option gives you a book view with six sections, as follows... o Base Moves This shows your four fixed Base Moves which will always be Toprock, Six-Step, Windmill and Baby Freeze. You can switch between them by pressing [down] and [up]. Pressing [circle] will show extra detail for the selected move, i.e. what level it is (from * up to *****) and how many of the maximum possible transitions are available. Moves can be levelled-up by using them, either in a battle or by practising (see Practice below). o Moves This the most important part of your movebook; it has four pages, each of which covers one of the four categories of moves - toprock, footwork, power moves and freezes. You can switch between these pages with [L1] and [R1]. Each page has a grid with three columns and four rows, with each of the twelve boxes corresponding to a unique button combo. The first column is for Easy moves, the second column is for Medium moves and the third is for Hard moves. The rows are for [up], [down], [left] and [right] combos respectively, so for example on the freezes page, [up square] is at the top-left of the grid and [right right right square] is at the bottom-right. (see Section 08 below for an explanation of the controls) When you select a box and press [cross] the game will list all the (learnt but unassigned) moves which you can assign to that combo (if any), for example if you select a box in the first column on the footwork page it will list all your available Easy footwork moves. Press [cross] again to assign a move. When you start the game you will have no moves available. You need to complete challenges in order to learn moves which you must then allocate to combos in the movebook before you can use them. There are two more things to note. Firstly the eight moves on the toprock page are pre-assigned and cannot be changed. Secondly the row of little boxes at the bottom of the screen shows how many slots are available - you can only have a maximum of twenty-four moves in total across the footwork, power moves and freeze pages at any one time, i.e. it is not possible to fill all thirty- six slots. The red ticks show how many slots you've used, and if you have any flashing ticks this means that you have new learnt moves but have not yet assigned them to button combos. Just like the Base Moves page, you can press [circle] to view the current level and number of transitions available for the selected move. I like to assign as many moves as possible to only the "up" and "down" combos since I find that makes it easier to remember them. Also if possible I match the combo to the move, for example I might put Headspin on [down down circle] as your head goes *down* to the floor and put Flare on [up up circle] since your legs go *up* in the air. :) (...well, it works for me!) See Section 10 for details of the moves available in Livin' Da Life mode. o Disses This shows how many Diss moves you've learnt. These are allocated to the four directions of the left stick but you start with only one (Killing It). I don't think the game tells you when you gain a new one, so check back here. o General Movement This pages just shows a few basic controls. Nothing too exciting! o Special Entries This shows the Special Entry moves your character has learnt; like the Disses, these are automatically assigned to the four directions on the left stick. At first you will not have any entry moves available - you have to learn them. o Opponents This page shows the moves that you can make during your opponent's turn. You can press the d-pad buttons to do basic (t)oprock, use the left stick to diss or shoulder buttons to switch between your two characters in a crew battle. .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Practice | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' You can select the option to "practice [sic] your moves" to try out your newly learnt moves (after adding them to your movebook) and to experiment with new transitions and putting together routines. Practising your moves causes them to level-up* which means that you can hold a move for longer and you'll get more transitions in/out of the move too. Using your moves in a battle also counts as practice but if you want to focus on one or two moves it's easier to do it in practice mode. It takes a few minutes to level-up a move but it's hardly a Warcraft grind and it's well worth the effort! The five medals (see Section 06) will be shown at the top of the screen and will flash each time you do something that contributes to that judging category, for example the Foundation medal will flash when you do an Easy move and the Rhythm medal will flash when you press L1 or R1 on the beat. If you [hold up] on the left stick this will end your turn (just like it does in a battle) but instead of quitting the practice mode it will switch to your b-boy partner who was lurking in the background so you can practise using their moves. You can press start to access the pause menu which lets you view the move list for the current character (see Section 10) or quit out of practice. Practice mode is also a good opportunity to familiarise yourself with the beat marks and the positions of the freeze sections on the songs. You can choose which music to play during practice from your laptop (see below). *In practice mode the game will pause and give a pop-up message each time you level-up a move. You also get notification if you level-up one of your techs during a battle but this happens after the battle has ended. .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Laptop | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' When you "jump on the computer" (not literally!) you get an interface with four sections. You can navigate around these with the d-pad and L1/R1 buttons. o Messageboard Actually it's more of a private inbox. You get a range of different messages here which can contain advice, information, challenges, tutorials, etc. A message with a subject like "footwork challenge" links to a simple one-round battle against another b-boy. If you win the challenge you learn a new move in that category, so a "footwork challenge" is not specifically a test of your footwork, but passing it will add a footwork move to your arsenal of moves. A "tournament invite" is quite straightforward - it means you can enter a battle with multiple phases against a number of other characters. A "new music" message means that you've unlocked a new song for your playlist. A "sponsorship opportunity" links to a task which will unlock a new set of clothing from one of the four sponsors when you complete it (see below). A "lab upgrade" means that your pad has changed a little. (big deal!) You'll often have several messages arrive at the same time (as many as eleven at once!) but be sure to check them all - the tutorials and tips are good and you'll get a lot of helpful info. o Schedule This is like a calendar which shows all the events currently available to you which will include all challenges and tournament invites you've received, and the option to practise is always listed here too. Once you win a tournament or complete a challenge it will no longer be shown. You can access an event directly by clicking on it here, or you can launch it from the corresponding message in your inbox. B-Boy isn't like, say, one of the Kengo games where you can only access events on specific days. You can access any event listed here at any time. o Wall of Fame This page shows the current league standings for the twenty characters in your current "scene". You start at the bottom and work your way up... The amount of "respect" that each character has is shown on the right. The standings in each of the three scenes seem to be pretty much fixed and you just work your way up through them. You'll notice that the top of the Street league overlaps with the bottom of the Club one and the same with the Club and Pro scenes. (These are the orders from my most recent play-through; YMMV.) Street Scene Club Scene Pro Scene ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ 1. Tano Benny Hong 10 2. Outlaw Darkness Lilou 3. Nuvo Ivan Kmel 4. Mexika Ruen Crumbs 5. Dee Rock Garin Physicx 6. Monk Spider Kazuhiro 7. Minus Solo Mouse 8. Selene Skill Roc Sonic 9. Origin Mellow D Dino Flo 10. Kool Rock Source Tiva 11. B Funk Tano Benny 12. Katana Outlaw Darkness 13. Money Nuvo Ivan 14. Duke Mexika Ruen 15. Statix Dee Rock Garin 16. Rosa Roc Monk Spider 17. Frankie Minus Solo 18. Zuna Selene Skill Roc 19. Juno Origin Mellow D The 20th character in each league is Custom (you!) who starts out at the bottom of the Street Scene at the beginning of the game. o Jukebox Despite the name, you can't actually play music here. What you can do is view all the songs you've unlocked and choose whether they are in your playlist or not (scroll to a track and press [cross] to remove it - the star on the right will turn off). This governs which of your songs will play during practice. After you've been playing the game for a while you might like to come here and de-select some of the old tracks from your jukebox playlist so you can focus on learning the beat patterns on your new ones. (also you might be sick of the old ones by then!) .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Wardrobe | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' The final option is to "change your gear" - specifically your top, trousers, shoes and hat, plus your hairstyle. The interface is a little awkward in that you can't browse the available items without actually changing the ones your character is wearing and you can't quit without accepting the changes you've made either. You use the d-pad direction buttons to navigate through the options, pressing [left] or [right] to cycle between the options and [down] to drill down to a lower and more detailed level, for example you might choose (from top to bottom) Legs, Pants, Style 2*, Cargo. Then press [cross] to confirm and return to The Lab. The clothing options are a little limited at first, with only plain and FSG** branded tee-shirts, but as you play through Livin' Da Life mode you'll encounter the sponsor challenges which will unlock new clothing sets from Dope Ammo, Armory, Tribal*** and Adidas which include new designs for tees, etc, and even new categories like vests, tracksuits and headspin hats. Each clothing set has a logical name, for example Adidas Club is the name of the Adidas set which you can access during the Club Scene phase. Most of the sponsor challenges are quick solo tests where you simply have to fill a gauge for one specific medal. The last two are the exception - to earn the Tribal Pro clothing set you have to beat Ivan in a battle, with two throw- downs each, competing for the Blow Up medal (I just held an Airflare for as long as possible, switched to the Jumping Airflare variant, then repeated). Then to gain the final set, Adidas Pro, you have to win a four-person elimination battle, just like the Open Circle option in B-Boy Jam mode (try to avoid going first and keep your Hype level up - see Section 07). *You can have one trouser leg rolled up for extra b-boy flava. :) **One of several name-checks to B-Boy developers FreeStyleGames in the game. ***I liked one of the Tribal tee-shirts so much that I bought the real thing! .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 05 | THE JAM s05 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' The B-Boy Jam mode is effectively the "arcade mode"; you can jump in for a quick play with a pre-built character in one of five game modes (described below). At first only seven b-boys are available (okay, actually six b-boys and one b-girl, sorry Rosa!) but you can unlock the rest in Survivor mode - see below. The key to success in B-Boy Jam is learning the moves for each character and how to use them. It's a good idea to start in the practice mode, pause the game and access the move list from the pause menu (NB: the move list is explained later in Section 10). You can explore the list to learn the character's active button combos and then un-pause to try them out. Once you've performed a move, its name will be displayed in the move list and that will make it a lot easier to see what's going on, then you can start studying the transitions that the character can use and maybe begin sketching-out a routine. Unlike Livin' Da Life mode, you cannot learn new moves or assign your own button combos. (If you're playing on PSP you'll have the additional option of Network Battle which lets you play with up to four people via Ad Hoc Mode (local wi-fi). Each player will need a PSP and their own copy of the game and the consoles will need to be configured to share the same wi-fi channel. Domination, Round for Round, Showcase and Open Circle modes are available for local multiplayer games.) o Domination In this mode you have to win the most medals (see Section 06) by the end of the game. Medals carry over from one round to the next so you can win one, lose it, win it back again, etc. There is no time limit on your throwdowns, instead you keep going until your Hype bar is empty or you choose to finish (to stop [hold up] on the left stick). You can choose a 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 contest and also select the number of rounds and which of the five medals are available. o Round for Round Your objective here is to win the most rounds, so medals don't carry over. You can choose to play 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 and select the number of rounds, the round length (from 20 to 300 seconds) and which medals are in play. o Showcase This is like Domination but with a time limit; medals carry over. You can specify 1-on-1 or 2-on-2, the number of throwdowns and their length and which medals are available. o Open Circle This one's a bit different - each contestant starts with a number of lives and the b-boy that comes last in each round loses a life. If you lose all your lives then you're eliminated. The "last man standing" is the winner. In each round you fight over a single medal in one of the five categories. The character who does best gets a gold version, second best gets silver and, yes, third best gets the bronze, but if they keep going they can swap it for the silver, and then the gold. As in Domination, your turn continues until you run out of Hype or you choose to end it (if you think you've done well enough). You can choose to compete against either two or three other characters, the number of lives each (1, 2 or 3) and which medal to use (or a random choice). o Practice For this you just pick a character (and a stage) and you have unlimited time to learn their moves and experiment with putting them together. It works very much like the practice option in Livin' Da Life mode. o Survivor This is the most important of the B-Boy Jam modes because beating it unlocks songs, stages and characters; the stages and characters can then be used in any of the B-Boy Jam games (and the songs are added to the playlist). At Easy and Medium difficulty you have to win three consecutive one-round battles and at Hard diff you have to win four (or occasionally five); in each battle you always go second and you compete for two specific medals. The medals and opponents are always the same for any given player character and difficulty - for example playing as Hong 10 on Medium you battle Selene for Flow and Foundation medals, followed by Nuvo for Creativity and Blow Up, and finally Mellow D for Rhythm and Creativity - but you choose the stage and the music is selected randomly. At Hard difficulty your penultimate opponent is usually Crazy Legs (for Rhythm and Foundation medals) and the final one is the character that you can unlock (so for Hong 10 it's Kazuhiro). - Completing Survivor mode with a character on EASY difficulty unlocks Medium difficulty for that character and (usually) a song for B-Boy Jam mode. - Completing Survivor mode with a character on MEDIUM diff unlocks the Hard diff option for them and a stage. - Completing Survivor mode with *some* characters on HARD will unlock another character. In some cases you need to unlock one character in order to unlock another, for example you have to complete Survivor mode on Hard with Ruen to unlock Kmel and then beat it with Kmel, again on Hard, to unlock Crazy Legs. All the unlocks are summarised in the table below... | Song | Stage | Character -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Benny | Rated X | Notorious IBE | Sonic -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Crazy Legs | Rock Creek Park | Rock Steady Aniv. | - -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Crumbs | Soul Clap | Urban Outlaws | - -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Darkness | The Phuncky Feel One | Urban Games | Physicx -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Hong 10 | Blow your Head | UK Champs | Kazuhiro -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Host 1 | Give it up or Turnit a Loose | Downtown Night | - -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Ivan | - | Battle of the Year | Crumbs -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Kazuhiro | Don't Sweat the Technique | The Tower Night | - -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Kmel | Open Sesame | Stormdrain Night | Crazy Legs -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Lilou | Get on the Good Foot | S/side Harbour Night | Host 1 -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Mellow D | Say it Loud, I'm Black and.. | The Jam Down | - -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Mouse | Brother Green | Grand Jam | Lilou -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Physicx | Cold Sweat | FSS Korea | Rack -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Rack | Yellow Sunshine | City Park Night | - -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Rosa Roc | Think (About It) | FSS USA | Mellow D -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Ruen | Juice (Know the Ledge) | Street Final | Kmel -----------+------------------------------+----------------------+----------- Sonic | Love to the World | Red Bull: K.O.T.R. | - A few of the characters also have a song unlock on Hard diff, e.g. beating the Survivor mode with Darkness unlocks the song 'Funkier than a Mosquito's Tweeter' in addition to the Physicx character, and Ivan unlocks 'Call Me Super Bad' as well as Crumbs (even though he doesn't have a song unlock on Easy). .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 06 | THE MEDALS s06 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' I'm going to devote a couple of sections to explaining two important concepts in the game: the medals (this section) and Hype (next section). In every battle or challenge in the game you will be competing for one or more of the five medals and they determine who wins so you need to know how they work. Each of the medals is awarded for a different aspect of b-boying, so various actions will contribute towards different medals. The medal/s available in a battle will usually be shown greyed-out at the top of the screen in the centre. When the first b-boy to dance does something to earn credit towards a medal, a little horizontal bar under the medal will start to fill with a bronze (orange!) colour. When the bar becomes full they have secured that medal at bronze level and it moves across the screen, under their name, and they can then work towards the silver (grey) and then gold (yellow) medals, again filling the little bar in the appropriate colour. However when their opponent takes to the floor they can try to steal it back! Whenever the second b-boy does something to gain credit towards the same medal category it will start to eat away at the bar under the medal. When it goes back to being a bronze-coloured bar the medal returns to the centre of the screen and then when the second character fills the bar they claim the medal for themselves. In a battle with two throwdowns each the same medal/s can switch back and forth between the two sides several times. If you crash during a move then you lose the medal progress you had just gained. At the end of the battle the game shows who has the most/best medals and is therefore the winner, although it will be clear who's won from the body-language of the final b-boy to go down (i.e. if they look "stoked" or not). Here's a summary of the five medals and which actions give credit towards them:- o Blow Up - denoted by a hand grenade Credit is awarded here for the big "crowd pleasing" moves and technical techs! - Hard moves (moves which require three d-pad presses to initiate) - Variations (moves launched by pressing only d-pad directions) - Hold these moves for longer to gain extra credit - Special Entries - Finishing Move The many variations you learn for your Six-Step and Windmill techs are an easy way to get some credit towards this medal and if you do several in a row then it'll add to the Flow medal too (see below). o Rhythm - denoted by a loudspeaker It's important to remember that b-boying is a dance style and therefore that as many moves as possible should be done on the beat, in time to the music. Also a b-boy should learn the structure of specific songs so that they can do moves to coincide with events in the music. This is recognised in the game by the Rhythm medal category. - Tap the L1 or R1 button in time to the markers on the beat wheel; this will also make (most) moves last longer - Transition between moves on the blue beat markers (on the 1-beat in the bar) - Hit freezes on the yellow sections that appear on the beat wheel (you need to enter the freeze move *during* the yellow section - if you are already in a freeze when it appears then it won't count) o Creativity - denoted by a light bulb This category is about creative choreography. - Use transitions that jump between move categories and levels, for example an Easy-level footwork move into a Hard-level power move - Try not to repeat a move and if you do then don't enter it from the same move the second time you do it When you do the "execution test" to trigger a move (see Section 08) look out for the little light-bulb icon and stars underneath - the more stars, the more Creativity points you'll get for doing that transition. For example going from Six-Step into a CC (i.e. the footwork Base Move into a footwork Easy move) is only worth one star but a Headspin into an Invert (power Medium into freeze Hard) is worth five stars! o Flow - denoted by three links of a chain The icon here is quite apt - it's all about creating the longest possible "chain" of moves. - Do a chain of as many consecutive moves as possible without stopping It doesn't matter how long you hold each of the moves, or if you repeat them. The length of your current chain is shown on the counter at the bottom-right of the screen. Cycling through all your toprock steps is an easy way to add to this medal. o Foundation - denoted by a sneaker This category is about keeping it real and using the more traditional and simpler breaking techs rather than the big "blow up" moves. - Use Easy and Medium level moves (also Base Moves) - Hold these moves for longer to gain extra credit Once you get past the easy battles it becomes crucial to tailor your routines to match the medals you're fighting over. If you're battling for the Foundation and Rhythm medals there's no point doing a Special Entry or using Hard moves. If you need the Creativity and Flow medals then there's no point holding one move for a long time - instead do as many moves as possible, with interesting transitions. If you go second in a battle then see which medals your opponent has won and if they are bronze, silver or gold. The bronze one/s will be the easiest for you to steal back from them. If you're battling for all five medals then maybe choose to focus on three of them which will give you the win. When the game gets harder (e.g. in the Club and Pro Scene in Life mode) you will probably want to start planning routines in advance. I would suggest making a "creative power" set with novel transitions and Hard moves to get the Creativity and Blow Up medals and a "creative foundation" set with cool transitions but mostly Easy and Medium moves for when you need to go for the Creativity and Foundation ones. Hold the moves for longer to get the Blow Up or Foundation medal, or do them more quickly if you're going for Flow instead. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 07 | THE HYPE s07 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Back in the day, Public Enemy told us "don't believe the hype" - but if they had been able to play this game back in 1988 then they would have realised that the Hype is a very real, tangible and generally quite believable concept! :) You'll have noticed the bars at the top of the screen during play that look like the health bars in a beat-'em-up game - these show the Hype for each character and indicate how "hyped" they are. There are several ways to gain Hype... - you usually start a battle with some Hype, and you have more if you go first - "pulling off unique moves and making the crowd go wild" (quoting the manual) - pressing the d-pad buttons in time to the music during your opponent's turn makes your character do basic toprock steps and adds a small amount of Hype - tap the left stick to diss your opponent during their turn either when they repeat a move (shown in red on the list) or when they crash - this adds a big chunk of Hype to your bar and removes some of theirs And there are also a few ways to lose Hype... - if you diss your opponent at the wrong time during their turn then you will lose a large amount of Hype (only diss when they repeat a move or crash) - if you crash during a move you will lose all your Hype - if you repeat a move and get dissed by your opponent - "if your moves fail to impress the crowd and judges" (from the manual again) So, what is it good for? Well, if your Hype bar is at least half full at the start of your turn then you can use a Special Entry move and/or if it is totally full then you can end your throwdown with a Finishing Move (both of which will contribute to the Blow Up medal). Conversely if you correctly diss your opponent and reduce their Hype it can stop them using these moves. Hype also has an effect on some of the B-Boy Jam game modes where your turn ends when your Hype bar becomes completely empty. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 08 | THE BUTTONS s08 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' The basic controls are common to all the various modes in the game, although some aspects will need to be unlocked if you're playing Livin' Da Life mode. o Face Buttons Each of these buttons corresponds to one of the four categories of moves... Triangle = toprock Square = freezes Circle = power moves Cross = footwork There's only four to learn, but if you need a mnemonic then remember that tops is at the top, footwork (done on the floor) is at the bottom, freezes are on the square which has a flat base so it's well balanced and power moves are on the circle which... er, is round like a Halo. (both the b-boy move and the thing that angels wear!) Simply pressing one of the buttons will launch the Base Move for that category which will be vanilla Toprock, a Windmill, a Baby Freeze or Six-Step if you're playing in Livin' Da Life mode (so you'd press [square] for a Baby Freeze). o D-Pad If you want to use one of your other moves from a category you need to add one or more d-pad presses before you press the appropriate face button, so for example you might press [down down square] for a Head Hollow freeze.* It's one press for an Easy move, two for a Medium one and three for a Hard one. ______/\______ Most moves require you to perform an execution test after /______/\______\ you've pressed the button combo. This will either be the / \ "Beat/Balance" type or, less commonly, the "Power/Power Beat / Balance Balance" type. In both cases there's a moving green bar and you have to stop it by pressing a face button (it doesn't ______________/ matter which one) as close as possible to either the centre /______________/ (Beat/Balance) or to the right side (Power) avoiding the / red zone. This determines whether you successfully initiate Power / the move and how good it is - the game will tell you if you Power Balance were DOPE! or FRESH! or even SICK! or perhaps only WHACK! Some moves (notably Six-Step and Windmills) also allow you to do variations with d-pad presses after you've initiated the move, for example you can press [cross] to start a Six-Step followed by [down down down] to do the Six-Step Elbow Rock variation (if your character knows that move). With some variations you can revert to the original move by pressing the opposite direction, for example you might do an Airflare, press [down] to do the Jumping Airflare variation, then [up] to return to a normal Airflare. If you input a combo and you hear a short vinyl scratch sound this means that you cannot do the move. This occurs when you a) input an incorrect combo, b) attempt a disallowed transition or c) already have your next move queued in your move chain. Sometimes you can have two moves queued but I think this only happens when your current move is about to end (transition). If you are not performing a move which allows variations then single presses of the d-pad buttons can be used to move around the stage/circle as follows... Up = move towards opponent Left = move around opponent (left) Right = move around opponent (right) Down = move away from opponent It makes no difference where you dance though so this would be a waste of time unless you're just doing it for show. Also some of the six-step variations let you move around the stage and they add to your chain of moves too so these are a better alternative. The d-pad buttons can also be used to dance** while your opponent takes their turn on the floor. Each of the four directions does a different move, although I find that pressing [left] and [right] alternately looks best. Doing this in time to the music will add small increments to your Hype meter. o Shoulder Buttons The main use for the L1 and R1 buttons (or L and R on PSP) is to hit the beats - pressing either of the shoulder buttons in time to the markers on the beat wheel around your character is the key to making your moves last longer and taking the Rhythm medal in a battle. The same buttons are also used to adjust your balance when you perform either a freeze or another balance move like an Open Headspin or a Kneespin. You need to tap or hold the buttons to keep the marker in the centre, although you will eventually reach a stage where you can't hold it any longer. You can also hit beat markers during a balance move if you press the button at the right time. In a two-man "crew" battle you can also press either button to switch between your characters while the other crew is taking their turn. o Left Stick At the very start of a battle you can press the left stick in one of the four directions to use a Special Entry move, as long as a) your Hype meter is at least half full and b) your character has the appropriate entry move for that direction. The four Special Entries can be learnt during Livin' Da Life mode. During a battle, while your character is dancing, you can tap the left stick to deliver a Diss (gestural insult) to your opponent. If you [hold up] on the left stick this will end your turn with either a random Diss or, if your Hype meter is totally full and your character has learnt it, the Finishing Move. Purple trails on your character's limbs indicate that they're stopping. You can also use the left stick to diss your opponent during their turn. If you do this either while they are repeating a move (shown in red on the list at the bottom-right) or when they have just "crashed" then you will gain a big chunk of Hype, but do it at other times and you'll end up losing Hype. During a practice session in Livin' Da Live mode, holding the left stick [up] will end your turn, letting you practice with your partner character. o Start Button Pressing [start] during a battle pauses the game. No surprises there! The pause menu gives you the option to quit or restart the current battle or practice session, or to view the move list for the character who is currently on the floor (see Section 10). You can access options there too. You'll also need to press [start] and choose the "Exit Lab" option if you want to quit out of the Livin' Da Life mode and return to the game's main menu. You can turn the autosave function on or off there as well. *You can only use moves and transitions that are shown in your move list. In Livin' Da Life mode you will need to assign your moves to button combos by adding ones that you've learnt to your movebook. In B-Boy Jam mode each b-boy has a predefined set of moves which are already allocated to combos. For more information about moves see Section 10 below. **The game describes the dance moves you make during your opponent's turn as "OpRock" but I wonder if this is a typo for either Toprock or Uprock...? .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 09 | THE DISPLAY s09 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' This section explains the elements that appear on the screen during a battle. At the top of the screen you can see the names of the b-boys that are currently competing; your character/s always appear on the left. Along with their names you can also see each person's Hype bar (see Section 07 for more on Hype). When a Hype bar is full it flashes in time to the beat markers (see below). In some of the B-Boy Jam game modes you will also see rows of small green stars up here. These count consecutive wins in Survivor mode or indicate the number of lives remaining in the Open Circle elimination mode. In the middle near the top of the display are the medals (see Section 06). Only the available medals for the current battle will be shown - there could be as few as one or as many as five. Once a medal has been won by a character it moves under their name. The "beat wheel" that appears around the active character on the dancefloor is very important. Pressing [L1] or [R1] each time a blue or orange beat indicator reaches the white I-shaped marker is the main way to win credit towards the Rhythm medal; each song in the game has a unique sequence of beat markers - some are quite simple (I think 'Holy Ghost' is the only track to maintain a straight 4:4 beat) and others are rather more complex. Correctly tapping the shoulder buttons on the beats also lets you hold a move for longer. When you initiate a move, a white circular bar will appear around your character. This indicates how long you can maintain the move - it will get shorter as time passes. When you hit a beat this will add to it, extending your time, but when you miss a beat (on any move that doesn't involve balancing) the wheel will flash red (and the controller will vibrate) and you'll lose some time. When there's not much bar/time left it will turn red and you'd better transition into another move quickly otherwise you could end up crashing. Some spinning balance moves (like the Kneespin and 2000) have an orange bar; this will disappear pretty quickly so you should have your next move ready. The other thing to look out for here is the yellow sections which indicate the parts of a song where you can do a freeze move to score extra Rhythm points. You need to enter the freeze while the "I" cursor is inside the yellow part - before or after is no good. At the bottom-right corner of the screen is a list of moves. The one on the black banner is the current move, the three below it are the three most recent moves in the current chain and the (usually only) one above it is the next move to be performed. If a move name is shown in green this means that it has not been used by the dancer in the current throwdown but if it's red it means that they're repeating a move and liable to get dissed by their opponent. Under the history list is a counter which shows the number of moves completed in the current chain - as the number gets bigger this will add to the Flow medal. After about five moves the dancer will get white trails off their limbs - I think this indicates that they have built up a certain amount of momentum. Finally the text that appears at the bottom-left of the screen shows the artist and title of each new music track as it begins. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 10 | THE MOVES s10 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' What really impresses about the game is the accuracy with which is recreates a wide range of b-boying moves (and the transitions between them). Unsurprisingly the moves were programmed using motion-capture equipment from real b-boys, many of them being the ones who appear in the game. Check this link to see some of them in skin-tight suits getting mo-capped! ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri1HfGSl1ZM After this introduction, the first part of this section of the guide describes the move list which plays an important role in the game. The Toprock, Footwork, Power Moves, Freezes, Special Entries and Disses sub-sections below list all the moves which you can learn during the game's Livin' Da Life mode.* I'm not going to write in detail about the moves for the characters in B-Boy Jam mode here since there are loads! However they are all at least listed in Section 11. The difficulty level of each move is given in brackets after its name, so for example Bicycle Pump in the Footwork category is an Easy move so it can be assigned to a combo starting with a single d-pad press, for example [up cross]. Medium moves require two presses, e.g. [left left square], and Hard moves are mapped to combos with three d-pad presses, e.g. [up up up circle]. Speaking of d-pad presses, I've also listed in square brackets the button combos for moves if they are fixed, e.g. for the Base Moves, for the toprock steps and for the variations. All other moves need to be assigned to a combo of your choice in your movebook (when playing Life mode). The variations (or "accents") are listed after the description of the main move. For example if you do a Bicycle Pump you can then press [down] to do a Bicycle Pump Check.* You can often access variations from other moves - for example in a Flare you can press [down] to transition into a Forearm Flare but you can also do this move with a "shortcut transition" by pressing [up down circle] from a 1990, Headspin, Windmill, etc - but here I have only listed each variation once, under the move from which you can enter the variation using only d-pad presses. You'll notice below that within each of the Footwork, Power Moves and Freezes categories there are four Easy moves, four Medium moves and four Hard moves so you have enough to fill all twelve combo slots for your favourite category (if you want) but keep in mind that you can only assign a maximum of twenty-four moves overall at any one time. If you attempt and pass all the move challenges in Livin' Da Life mode as soon as they appear (and I suggest you do - the more moves the better!) then you should find that you gain the techs in approximately the following order... Street Scene: Helicopter, Backspin, Brooklyn Rock and Cross Step (pair), Three- Step, Headstand, Crazy Rock and Lil' Crazy Rock (pair), Baby Love, Handstand, Turtle, Burst! (your first Special Entry), Kneespin, Airbaby, Headspin, CC, Chair, Flare, Pretzels, Head Hollowback, Halo, Sidebaby, 1990, Coin Drop (your first Hard move), Invert, 2000, Finishing Move! Club Scene: Zulu Spin, Shoulder Freeze, Swipe, Bicycle Pump, Forearm Freeze, Munchmill, Floor Rock, Web, Air Freeze, Handhop, Forearmspin, Air Flare, Head Swipe, Handstand Walk!, Elbowtrack, Moon Kick 360!, Airchair, Torpedo Dive! There are also four Hard difficulty toprock techniques which you gain during the Pro Scene (I got them as a set of four after completing the Tribal Pro sponsor- ship test). Pro Scene: Butterfly Twist 540, Butterfly Twist, Moon Kick, Ariel In total you learn twelve footwork techs, twelve power moves, twelve freezes, eight toprock moves, four Special Entries and the Finishing Move. After starting with only one, you also learn the other three Disses but you don't have to complete challenges for them and you're not told when you've gained a new one. *You will need to complete the challenges to learn the moves, then to assign the moves to button combos in your movebook in order to be able to use them and then to practise/use the moves until they are levelled-up before you have access to all the variations listed. .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Move List | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' When you pause the game, either during a battle or in practice mode, you can access the move list for the b-boy who is currently on the floor (if it's your opponent's turn then you view the move list for that character, not yours). The move list shows all the moves that the character knows and, crucially, which ones can be connected together - when you go from one move into another this is a "transition". When you first learn a move in Livin' Da Life mode it will be undeveloped (indicated with one star) and the number of permitted transitions into it and out of it will be fairly small. As you use that move, both during battles and in practice mode, it will improve (up to five stars) and the number of available transitions will greatly increase which gives you a lot more freedom in constructing routines and the potential to score more Creativity. When you access the move list it will show the four Base Moves for the b-boy (in the four move groups) unless the character is currently performing a move in which case it will automatically select that move. There are three parts to the move list display. In the centre is the currently selected move, on the left are all the moves that can transition into it and on the right are all the ones that you can transition into from it. It might be helpful to think of it (from left to right) as past, present and future. All the moves are colour-coded: toprock is in green, power moves in dark orange, freezes in pink and footwork in blue (you'll notice that this corresponds to the colours of the four face buttons on the joypad). The Base Moves are listed at the top and the others are below, usually with standard moves and variations grouped together. Above the selected move in the centre you'll see illustrations of one or more button combos (often only one but sometimes as many as six). You can scroll up and down the moves on the left - the combo you need to press in order to go from the highlighted move on the left to the selected move in the centre will be the one that's flashing. Sometimes there will be more than one button combo that can be used to go between the same two moves. You can move left/right between the "past" and "future" lists and up/down to highlight any move. If you then press [cross] you select that move and it then becomes the move shown in the middle of the screen, again with the moves that go into it on the left and the ones you can go into on the right. In this way you can work through the character's repertoire and build a routine in advance. Alternatively you might panic in the middle of a battle, not knowing what move to transition into, but you can pause, access the move list and it will show you your available options (if you do that too often though you'll miss a lot of the beat markers and get less Rhythm medal credit). I like to plan a couple of sets for each character (see end of Section 06) and I'll write these down in a basic notation and then put it next to the screen so that I can refer to them quickly mid-battle. Here's an example I've made up... <<>[] - ^X - >>O(s) - < It starts with a Hard power move (three d-pad presses followed by [circle]), a variation (d-pad press only), a Medium freeze, an Easy footwork move, a Medium power move and finally a variation of that. The exclamation mark on the first move alerts me to the fact that it has the trickier "power" execution test and the (s) on the second power move means that it's a short move like a Headspin. Remember that in Life mode you can only use moves that you've set up in your movebook (see Section 04); the movebook will also show you the level of all your learnt moves (* to *****) and the number and types of transitions that are available for each. Once moves have been assigned to combos in the movebook they will then appear in the move list. In B-Boy Jam mode each character's moves are pre-assigned to button combos and cannot be changed (there's no movebook). There's one final thing to mention about the move list which perhaps I should have said a little earlier! In both Life and Jam modes all move names (except for the Base Moves) will be replaced by "???" until you've performed that move! You can still see the button combos so you can use these to work your way around each character's move-set in B-Boy Jam mode and this will cause the names to be displayed (as you do them). This is a good way to become familiar with their moves but it's a bit of a slow process so I have no qualms about using the cheat code which displays all move names in the move lists (see Section 14). It's not cheating, it's just saving you some unnecessary time and effort! .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Toprock | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' In simple terms, toprock is the part of breaking where the b-boy is standing and has only their feet on the floor. It can be made up of any number of different cross-steps, side-steps, back-steps, kicks, shuffles and spins, in time to the music, and with the arms usually swinging from the centre to the sides. Toprock (or "tops") serves many purposes: it's used to enter the circle, perhaps clearing a little space, to express your style and how you're feelin' the music, to move around the circle during a set in order to re-centre or face off against your rivals, and maybe to catch your breath after a big move! Although it's not required, I always start a routine in the game with toprock. Going straight from tops into a Hard move will give a good Creativity bonus. All of your toprock moves, apart from the Base Move, are automatically maxed out on level, so you don't need to practise them. Toprocking is pre-dated by the style of rocking (Brooklyn rock or uprock) which includes mimed attacks known as burns. You'll sometimes see the characters doing this in the game when they face off before a battle begins. Your toprock moves are pre-assigned to button combos including the triangle button, as shown below. The four Medium-level moves can be learnt during the Street Scene if you work through all the move challenges. The four Hard moves at the bottom - all acrobatic jumping kicks - are learnt during the Pro Scene. o Toprock (Base) [triangle] o Salsa Front (Easy) [up triangle] o Salsa Back (Easy) [down triangle] o Indian Step (Easy) [left triangle] - Indian Step Right [up up] o March Step (Easy) [right triangle] - Star Step [up up] o Cross-Step (Medium) [down down triangle] o Crazy Rock (Medium) [left left triangle] o Lil' Crazy Rock (Medium) [right right triangle] o Brooklyn Rock (Medium) [up up triangle] o Butterfly Twist (Hard) [down down down triangle] o Moon Kick (Hard) [left left left triangle] o Ariel (Hard) [right right right triangle] o Butterfly Twist 540 (Hard) [up up up triangle] .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Footwork | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' The essence of b-boying is footwork, also known as the groundrock or downrock (as opposed to toprock or uprock). From toprock you use a "go-down" or "drop" to descend to the ground where you can perform a range of moves which basically involve having your hands and feet (in various combinations) on the floor. Your footwork moves can be assigned to button combos including the cross button. o Six-Step (Base) [cross] The footwork move that truly defines b-boying is the Six-Step. In a crouching position you move your legs around your body in a series of six steps (do you see where the name came from?!) which takes you back to the starting point. Like all the footwork moves, it can be repeated indefinitely and it can be performed in either direction although in the game it's clockwise. When you first learn the Six-Step (in real life) you find that your body turns with each set of six-steps but in time you learn to keep your body oriented in the same direction. Oddly this beginner's Rotating Six-Step is one of the two Hard variations of this move in the game! Including that one, the Six-Step has thirteen variations in total which gives a cheap way to build your Flow medal points. You can also use some of them to move around the dancefloor without breaking your combo. - Back Shuffle [down] - Front Shuffle [up up] - Shuffle Right [right right] - Hop Left [left] - Hop Right [right] - Roll [down down] - Switch Up [up] - Switches [cross] - Rewind [cross] - Crouched Switch [cross] - Criss Cross [cross] - Rotating Six-Step [up up up] - Six-Step Elbow Rock [down down down] o Bicycle Pump (Easy) You start out crouching on your hands and feet, like you're about to start a running race, then alternately extend one leg then the other - kinda like you're using an invisible StairMaster machine but facing the floor! - Bicycle Pump Check [down] o CC (Easy) In a CC (or Cee-Cee) you extend one leg and then balance on that foot and the hand on the same side while you twist you hips, wrapping the other knee over the top. This serves to counter the flow of your Six-Step footwork - if you're doing Six-Step clockwise then the CC will add counterclockwise motion. The CC can be repeated so that you use first one leg and then the other. In Joseph Schloss's book Foundation, the president of the Mighty Zulu Kings, Alien Ness, says that the correct and original name for CC's is Russian Taps (since they were inspired by the early "Russian dance" footwork). There are three variations of the CC available. The CC Roll is quite similar to the movement used in the Zulu Spin (see below). - CC Roll Right [right] - No-Handed CC [down] - CC Hop [up] o Helicopter (Easy) In this move, sometimes known (more recently) as the Coffeegrinder, one leg sweeps almost horizontally around the body while the supporting hands and the foot of the other leg hop over it as it goes around (like one of the rotors on a helicopter). o Baby Love (Easy) With your hands on the floor and your face towards the floor you walk your feet around your hands in a series of steps. This move is sometimes - perhaps incorrectly - referred to as Twelve-Step. The Baby Love was named after the b-girl who invented it. o Pretzels (Medium) This consists of a right leg sweep in a counterclockwise direction then a roll over, followed by a clockwise left leg sweep and a roll over, etc. "Give the pretzels them!" ...Sorry, that's a pretty obscure geek joke! B) o Zulu Spin (Medium) These are performed in a crouch, close to the ground, repeatedly spinning around, briefly touching the floor with your hands to maintain balance. Zulu Spins are also known as Tornadoes. o Kneespin (Medium) Guess what? You spin on your knee. It can be done with the torso and legs in a horizontal position but in this case the body is upright. To hold this move you need to use a balance meter, just like a freeze. o Three-Step (Medium) This is like an abbreviated version of the standard Six-Step. By incorporating a couple of shuffles you reduce it to a three-step sequence which can be performed a lot faster than Six-Step. o Web (Hard) Web Mills, also called German Mills or Tapping Mills, are a variation of the Windmill where you tap one foot on the floor once per rotation. o Floor Rock (Hard) Lying on the floor, your shoulders remain in contact with the ground while you walk your feet around your body. - Belly Roll [up] - Floor Rock CC Left [left] - Floor Rock CC Right [right] - Hook Left [left left] - Hook Right [right right] o Head Swipe (Hard) This is a two-footed version of a Swipe (listed below as a power move) in which your head remains in contact with the floor throughout. o Coin Drop (Hard) The Coin Drop is a go-down move - you start in a standing position, leaning forwards, and then roll on your shoulder onto the floor (like a transition from standing into a Windmill). As you hold the move you roll back up to standing again and repeat. .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Power Moves | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' These are the more dramatic "crowd-pleasing" moves which usually require strength and some pseudo-gymnastic ability. The definition of "power moves" in the game is pretty broad, encompassing spins, air moves and floats. Like the footwork moves, the power moves involve circular movement so you can transition between most of them without losing momentum. Your power moves can be assigned to button combos including the circle button. o Windmill (Base) [circle] The classic power move is the Windmill or Continuous Backspin, invented (by accident) by none other than Crazy Legs. With your legs held in a "V" shape, you basically roll sideways from your back onto your front (essentially into a Baby Freeze) and back again. The variations involve performing a Windmill with the hands positioned in various places, e.g. behind the back (handcuffs), crossed over the chest like a dead body (coffin) or protecting the family jewels (nutcracker)! - Australian Windmill [down] - Tombstone Windmill [left] - Coffin Windmill [up up] - Nutcracker Windmill [right] - Grab Windmill [down down] - Handcuff Windmill [left left] o Swipe (Easy) This is the one-footed version of the classic Swipe move invented by b-boy pioneer Spy. From a loose crab-walking position, basically the two halves of your body rotate independently. One arm reaches over so that you have both hands on the floor, that's 180 degrees of rotation for your top half. Then, with one leg sticking out straight in the air throughout, you kick your other leg around it making 360 degrees of movement until it lands back onto the floor. Finally the top half of your body rotates the remaining 180 degrees to put you back where you started. (In practice there's more of a flow to it.) For a two-footed Swipe - where you start and end with both feet on the floor - check out Ivan's moves in B-Boy Jam mode. o Turtle (Easy) This is a float move. With both palms fairly close together on the floor you support and balance your body weight by pressing your elbows into your abdomen (in the same way you use one elbow in the Baby Freeze - see below). Then by switching your weight from one arm to the other you "walk" your hands around and your body rotates in a horizontal circle. - U.F.O. [right] - Cricket [down] - Jackhammer [left] o Munchmill (Easy) This is based on the Windmill but your legs are bent and crossed together. They extend out and retract each time you go round. Also known as Baby Mills. o Backspin (Easy) Another vintage b-boy tech, this one invented by Jo-Jo, one of the founders of the Rock Steady Crew. Using the momentum from your previous move you flip onto your back, tuck in your arms and legs and spin around for as long as possible (probably not very long). - Backspin Tucked [down] o Flare (Medium) The Flare is based on the gymnastic move of the same name (which is often performed on a pommel horse). While balancing on both hands, head upright, you swing both legs around your body, alternately raising one hand and then the other to let your legs go past. You could think of it as being like a two- legged Helicopter. In the harder Forearm Flare (or Elbow Flare) variant you balance on your forearms instead of your hands. - Forearm Flare [down] o 1990 (Medium) Put simply, the 1990 is a spinning one-handed handstand. - 1990 Drill [down] - Open 1990 [left] - Hooked 1990 [right] o Headspin (Medium) A classic b-boying move, invented by Kid Freeze. It's like a spinning Head- stand, with the hands used occasionally to maintain balance. In the "open" variant the hands are not used at all so you have to control a freeze-style balance meter to hold the move. - Headspin Open [down] - Forearm Headspin [left] o Halo (Medium) A Halo is kinda like a Windmill but with the head remaining in contact with the ground. The spread legs constantly rotate while the upper half of the body rotates quickly, stopping briefly facing downwards with the hands supporting. You could also think of it as a non-vertical Headspin where the circumference of your head traces a circle on the floor. Halos are also known as Trax. o Forearm Spin (Hard) A Headspin with both forearms resting on the floor. o 2000 (Hard) Recognised as a move in its own right (with its own name), the 2000 is a variation of the 1990 (see above). It's a spinning one-handed handstand with the free hand positioned on top of the balancing hand on the floor. o Airflare (Hard) You could describe this as a continuous no-footed Swipe. Both legs remain in the air, spread apart, while the top half of your body rotates. Half the time you're in a Handstand, the other half you're rotating unsupported in mid-air. With the Jumping Airflare you rotate about the axis of your body which results in you taking a couple of extra "steps" with your hands in each revolution. - Jumping Airflare [down] o Elbowtrack (Hard) This is like a lower version of the Airflare - you support your weight on your forearms instead of your hands. - On Point Elbowtrack [down] .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Freezes | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' Freezes are moves that involve using strength and balance to hold the body in a fixed (frozen) position, often used at the end of a chain of moves or a set. In B-Boy you can gain extra Rhythm medal credit for hitting a freeze on one of the occasional yellow sections on the beat wheel which always coincide with a gap or other event on the song. Your freeze moves can be assigned to button combos including the square button. During a freeze you need to use the L1 and R1 buttons to control a balance meter - if the marker touches either end of the meter then, unless you're doing a basic Baby or Sidebaby, you will crash. o Baby Freeze (Base) [square] This is a basic and simple freeze, hence the name. You balance with both palms and the side of your head on the ground. The elbow of your strong arm presses into your abdomen, supporting your body weight. You can press [square] a second time to switch your legs which looks cool but it doesn't add to your move chain (otherwise you'd have a quick/cheap way to build up your Flow medal). o Shoulder Freeze (Easy) This looks kinda like a fallen Headstand! You balance on the side of your head, your shoulder on one side and the hand on the opposite side. o Sidebaby (Easy) This is a minor variant of the standard Baby. o Chair (Easy) The iconic Chair Freeze can be entered from the Baby Freeze by twisting your hips until one foot touches the floor behind you; the ankle of the other leg then rests on the knee of the first leg, like you're sitting cross-legged. The elbow of your balancing arm presses into the side of your torso and the other hand is lifted from the ground, usually placed on your hip. o Headstand (Easy) Erm, it's basically an ordinary Headstand! Your legs are bent and you can move them to maintain balance. o Handstand (Medium) Another obvious one - a good ol' fashioned Handstand. Like a Headstand but with your arms straight and head off the floor; also your legs are splayed in a "V" shape. o Airbaby (Medium) Here you balance on one hand with the knee of the leg on the same side sitting on the elbow of the supporting arm. In the game though it's depicted with the other arm and both legs hanging freely. o Head Hollowback (Medium) This is a kind of Headstand, where the back of your head touches the floor and your supporting hands are positioned behind your back. Your legs are suspended on the opposite side to your head, although in the "invert" variant they move over to the other side. If you can do this move without using your head for balance then it's just called a Hollowback. - Head Hollowback Invert [down] - Head Hollowback Open [left] o Forearm Freeze (Medium) A Handstand with flava! You balance on your hand on one side and on a forearm on the other. o Invert (Hard) This is an inverted Hollowback; Kmel has a similar move which is actually labelled as a Hollowback Invert. You could also think of it as being like the invert variation of the Head Hollowback (see above) without the head! o Handhop (Hard) In a one-handed handstand you repeatedly kick upwards with your legs and hips so that your hand keeps hopping off the ground. No, it's not really a freeze. Handhops are also called Rabbits. o Air Freeze (Hard) This is simply a one-handed Handstand. (Simple to describe at least.) The spinning version of this move is the 1990 (see above). - Tucked Air Freeze [down] - Air Freeze Grab [left] o Airchair (Hard) This move takes its name from the fact that it's like a Chair freeze but with your head and foot lifted off the ground! You have one hand flat on the floor, the elbow of this arm pressing into your side, supporting your entire weight. Your free arm and both legs point vertically upwards - keeping them close to your centre of balance. .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Special Entries | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' Special Entries (or Special Entrances) are moves which can be performed at the start of a throwdown as you enter the circle/stage. This dramatic entrance will contribute about a third of a bar towards the Blow Up medal. Each of the four Special Entries always transitions automatically into one of the four Base Moves and they are initiated by tapping the LEFT STICK (during the 3...2...1 countdown) in the direction that matches the button position for that move group. For example the "Torpedo Dive!" entry ends in a Windmill, which is a power move, which corresponds to the circle button, which is on the right so you tap the left stick [right] to do the move! I hope that makes sense. :) Burst! [up] Toprock [triangle] Handstand Walk! [left] Torpedo Dive! [right] Freeze [square] Power [circle] Moon Kick 360! [down] Footwork [cross] Using a Special Entry will cost you half your Hype bar so, obviously, your Hype bar must be at least half full to be able to do this. If you win the Who Goes First "spin the bottle" test at the start of a battle or tournament then you will have enough Hype to do a Special Entry, but often your Hype level will carry over from one round/battle to the next after that so if you're not going for the Blow Up medal then save your Hype and don't do an entry. At the start of Livin' Da Life mode your character doesn't know any of the Special Entry moves but you can learn one (Burst!) during the Street Scene. In B-Boy Jam mode all the famous characters have their own entry move which is called "Blow Up!"; again this will transition into one of the Base Moves and is launched by tapping the left stick in the corresponding direction (see Section 11) or you can simply rotate the stick to hit all four directions! The four fictional characters have one each of the four named Life mode Special Entries which are listed here. o Burst! [up] Your character skips into the circle holding out their arms horizontally like the wings on an airplane. Erm, that's it! It transitions into Toprock. o Handstand Walk! [left] The name is self-explanatory: in a Handstand, the b-boy "walks" into the circle before dropping down into a Baby Freeze (so be ready to either maintain the balance or transition into another move). o Moon Kick 360! [down] Easily the most dramatic of the entry moves, your character jumps up into a roughly horizontal form and kicks so that they spin 360 degrees around their body's axis. They then land, quickly drop down to the floor on one leg and into Six-Step footwork. The original Moon Kick tech and name is inspired by the "Chuta na Lua" move from Capoeira - the Afro-Brazilian martial art / dance style. o Torpedo Dive! [right] The character dives onto the floor and into a Windmill. .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Disses and Finishing Move | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' A diss is a mimed attack (like a "burn" in uprock) which you use to insult your opponent. You can perform a diss by tapping one of the four directions on the LEFT STICK between move chains. If you [hold up] on the left stick this will end your turn. Doing this when you have a full Hype bar will end your turn with the Finishing Move! Be careful with this - if your Hype bar is maxed out and you want to save it for the next battle then don't use this option, you can't end the turn without the Finishing Move! o Killing It [tap up] Your character makes a throat-cutting gesture. When you start out in Livin' Da Life mode this is the only diss your character knows. o Slice and Dice [tap right] Your character mimes grabbing your opponent, cutting them with a knife and then sheathing their imaginary weapon. o Blow you Away [tap left] Your character mimes firing a shotgun at your opponent, with the recoil causing them to jump back in the air. This is my favourite. :) o In Your Face [tap down] Your character makes a popular - but rather rude - b-boy gesture! o Finishing Move! [hold up] This is a sort of Windmill-into-Swipe-into-crouch type thing which ends your turn theatrically. You need a full Hype bar in order to be able to use this and it will empty it but you will gain a large chunk of Blow Up medal credit. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 11 | THE DANCERS s11 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' This section describes the available characters in the game - the seventeen playable characters in B-Boy Jam mode and the nine crew partners which you're consecutively paired with in Livin' Da Life mode. I've listed the move-set for each person, with the Base Move (see Section 08) for each category given at the start of each list in CAPS. (well, except 1990!) .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jam Mode Characters | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' The characters for B-Boy Jam mode (see Section 05 above) are listed below in the order they appear on the menu. When you start the game only seven are available - Darkness, Hong 10, Ivan, Mouse, Rosa Roc, Ruen and Benny - but the others can be unlocked by completing the Survivor mode on Hard difficulty with other people (see notes here or table in Section 05). Most of the characters are based on real b-boys with the exception of, I think, four people - these are the ones that each have one of the four Special Entry moves that you can learn in Livin' Da Life mode. The others each have their own entry move, although they are all simply named "Blow Up!" - these automatically transition into their Base Move of the category given in brackets, for example Hong 10's "Blow Up!" move is a freeze move so it segues into his Halo Freeze. o Host 1 This guy is all about the old skool, with his Kangol-style hat and Adidas sneakers and tracksuit, all co-ordinated in red. He doesn't have the biggest range of techniques and is pretty lacking when it comes to power moves. Host 1 can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Lilou. Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, march step, brooklyn rock, cross-step, crazy rock, lil' crazy rock Footwork: SIX-STEP, kneespin, bicycle pump, three-step, baby love, helicopter, cc, zulu spin, pretzels Power: WINDMILL, turtle, swipe, backspin, headspin Freezes: BABY FREEZE, shoulder freeze, forearm freeze, head hollowback, chair, headstand, handstand, sidebaby, airbaby Entry: Burst! o Darkness Top Korean b-boy Darkness, formerly of the Gambler crew, is known for his freezes so it's no surprise to see that he has an extensive range here with lots of variations. Toprock: TOPROCK, brooklyn rock left, brooklyn rock right, indian step left, indian step right, star step Footwork: THREE-STEP, one-handed three-step, three-step mini-swipe, three-step sweep, six-step, baby love, rollover, shuffle, cc, criss cross, w, popout Power: 1990, hopping 1990, inverse 1990, flare, checked flare, headspin, swipe, handglide, windmill, halo, shoulder halo, buddha, 2000, ufo, spinning airchair, shoulderspin, icey ice Freezes: HANDSTAND TUCK, handstand, forearm freeze, one-armed forearm freeze, shoulder freeze, baby freeze, baby with a gun, one-armed baby, footbaby, footbaby grab, dark sidebaby, airbaby, kicking airbaby, power float, hollowback, airchair, kicking airchair, y-freeze, y-freeze right, y-freeze left, y-freeze tuck, y-freeze plank, gambler, tucked headstand, kicking headstand, elbow freeze, pencil elbow freeze, handhop Entry: Blow Up! (freeze) o Hong 10 One of the biggest names in international breaking is Korea's Hong 10 whose victories include the Red Bull BC One solo (Brazil 2006), FSS Korea (2004) and consecutive crew titles at the UK B-Boy Champs. Known for his complex freezes, his move-set here includes several of his signature moves such as the Chair Flare and, of course, his own Hong 10 Freeze. Toprock: TOPROCK, brooklyn rock left, brooklyn rock right, side-step left, side-step right Footwork: THREE-STEP, one-handed three-step, three-step scissor kick, shuffle, six-step, zulu spin, baby love, bridge, one-legged bridge, bridge track, bridge thread, criss cross, floor rock, floor rock head thread, floor rock threads, floor rock worm, cc, handspin Power: FLARE, chair flare, windmill, bellymill, 1990, halo, one-handed nutcracker halo, double halo, one-handed halo grab, elbowtrack, one- handed elbowtrack, headspin Freezes: HALO FREEZE, open halo freeze, halo freeze track, open halo freeze jump, halo freeze switches, halo freeze tap, halo freeze swipe, one- handed halo freeze, threaded halo hop, baby freeze, head hollowback, invert, side invert, open invert, forearm freeze, one-armed forearm freeze grab, air chair, handcuff air chair, air chair grab, air chair twisted grab, high chair, hong 10 freeze, hong 10 freeze hang, hong 10 freeze l-kick, hong 10 freeze side-kick, air freeze, twisted grab air freeze, piked air freeze, air freeze salute, handstand, headstand, twisted headstand Entry: Blow Up! (freeze) o Ivan America's self-proclaimed "Urban Action Figure" focuses mainly on the more acrobatic techs, with lots of power moves and some gymnastic "toprock" but little footwork and only one freeze. Unfortunately Ivan is perhaps now best known outside the b-boying community for his appearance on the US television show America's Got Talent where he attempted a trampette jump over a row of chairs and bailed badly. Toprock: TOPROCK, left hand spring, back sum, layout, high layout, piked sum, the i-flip, don't front, back flip ankle cross Footwork: SIX-STEP, right hook, three-step, knee swipe, cc, drop-kick, zulu spin, kneespin Power: WINDMILL, handcuff windmill, confusion windmill, windmill reach, windmill startrack, supaman mill, supaman returns, munchmill, 2000, 1990, backspin, headspin, headspin drill, pointing headspin, u.a.f. headspin, blind headspin, power headspin, star headspin, headspin grab, egg beater headspin, illusion headspin, halo, one-handed halo, two-footed swipe, one-footed swipe Freezes: BABY FREEZE Entry: Blow Up! (footwork) o Kazuhiro Representing the foundational styles, Kazuhiro out of Japan's King Ark crew is keeping it real with a good selection of footwork moves. Aged 30 at the time of the game's release, he gives the younger dancers a run for their money! Kazuhiro can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Hong 10. Toprock: TOPROCK, side-step turn, side-step accent, brooklyn rock Footwork: SIX-STEP, commando six-step, rotating six-step, six-step wave, six- step hip switch, sweeping six-step, three-step, three-step kick, three-step hop, three-step swipe roll, three-step mini-swipe, baby love, baby love knee roll, baby love turnout, turnout pose, pop out, twist, macaca, shuffle, handspring, zulu spin, applejack, switches, cc, king kickout, kingspin, switch kick, knee stall Power: WINDMILL, munchmill, swipe, air swipe, backspin, halo, flare, air flare Freezes: BABY FREEZE, airbaby, forearm freeze, chair, shoulder freeze, air freeze, handstand, switch handstand, twisted handstand Entry: Blow Up! (toprock) o Kmel (or Kamel) Kmel hails from the U.S. of A. and dances for the Boogie Brats crew, hence the "Brats" on his jersey. Listed, along with Crumbs (below), as one of the modern b-boys most admired by legendary breaker Frosty Freeze (RIP), Kmel has a big selection of footwork and freezes but he can still drop a few power moves when the need arises. Kmel can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Ruen. Toprock: TOPROCK, brooklyn rock, brooklyn drop, cross-step, knee jive, blade kick, leanski, intrigue flip Footwork: SIX-STEP, six-step 8 ball, rotating six-step, six-step king ness, corkscrew, kickout, get 'em gump, kneespin, double kneespin, three- step, kipup, baby love, baby love knee roll, baby love turtle step, baby love kick, turtle walk forward, turtle walk back, turtle walk left, turtle walk right, zulu spin, knee rock, pretzels, head swipe, floor rock origami, floor rock belly roll Power: BELLYMILL, windmill, backspin, backspin tucked, halo, one-handed halo, headspin, flare, high flare, swipe, 1990, turtle Freezes: BABY FREEZE, baby brat, baby gun, headstand, forearm headstand, chair, head hollowback, forearm head hollowback, head hollowback hang, head hollowback crossed, bridge, one-handed bridge, forearm freeze, double forearm freeze, handstand, twisted handstand, air freeze hang, air freeze grab, twisted air freeze, hollowback, hollowback tuck, hollowback invert, hollowback crossed, airchair, left armchair, elbowchair Entry: Blow Up! (footwork) o Lilou Depicted here wearing his distinctive shemagh, Lilou from France has a unique style of technical and, frankly, somewhat frenzied breaking. He's a founder member of the Pockemon crew who took the UK B-Boy Champs crew title in 2006. Last year he become the first person to win the international Red Bull solo title for a second time. Lilou can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Mouse. Toprock: TOPROCK, side-step left, side-step right Footwork: SIX-STEP, six-step run around, six-step thread, six-step elbowrock, sweeping six-step, three-step, rotating three-step, baby love, baby love knee-step, criss cross, criss cross thread, criss cross tap, double criss cross, kneespin, double kneespin, cc, cc front, cc tap, cc double, pretzels, pretzels threads, shuffle, crouch, applejack, coin drop, floor rock, floor rock back thread, floor rock slide thread, floor rock corkscrew Power: FLARE, threaded flare, windmill, windmill thread, headspin, headspin drill, headspin grab, elbowtrack Freezes: AIRCHAIR, airchair grab, elbow airchair, airchair arm link, airchair grab behind, airchair thread, lotus airchair, high chair, headstand, headstand balance, headstand grab, headstand thread, twisted head- stand, sidebaby, one-handed sidebaby, sidebaby rolling thread, elbow freeze, elbow freeze thread, air freeze, twisted grab air freeze, air freeze thread, lotus air freeze, spider, half spider, tortoise spider, spider alpha, spider threads, cradle, tortoise cradle, lotus cradle, invert, lotus invert, tucked invert, forearm freeze, forearm freeze thread, forearm freeze grab, one-armed forearm freeze, baby freeze, baby kick, airbaby, airbaby grab, footbaby grab Entry: Blow Up! (freeze) o Mouse Filipino b-boy Mouse is based in the UK and a member of the Soul Mavericks crew, although he achieved solo success with UK titles in 2005 and 2006. Like the previous two characters, he has a decent range of footwork and freezes. Toprock: TOPROCK, bounce left, bounce right, salsa step left, salsa step right Footwork: THREE-STEP, three-step turnout, three-step shuffle, three-step kick, three-step swipe, three-step mini-swipe, helicopter, pretzels, criss cross, criss cross stall, criss cross scramble, coin drop, floor rock ninja, floor rock threads, floor rock back rock, baby love, baby love turnout, switches, switched on, cc, cc dip, double cc, cc rollover, cc uprise, cc front, cc shuffle, topspin, six-step, back rewind, front rewind, run around Power: WINDMILL, bellymill, munchmill, swipe, swipe turnout, halo, double halo, 1990, 2000, flare, airflare, munch airflare, elbowtrack, drill Freezes: BABY FREEZE, baby gun, baby switch, elbow freeze, one-armed elbow freeze, spider, chair, crazy chair, forearm freeze, forearm freeze l-kick, air freeze, air freeze grab, piked air freeze, tucked air freeze, headstand, lotus headstand, forearm headstand, one-handed headstand, handstand, open handstand, lotus handstand, handhop, handhop switches, head hollowback, open head hollowback, tucked head hollowback, lotus head hollowback, airchair, airchair grab, invert, l-kick invert, lotus invert, crossed invert, tucked invert, side invert, invert hop Entry: Blow Up! (freeze) o Physicx Straight outta Korea, Physicx is looking fresh with a two-tone (Windrunner?) jacket and matching cap! He's a member of the Rivers crew but was also part of the multiple UK Champs-winning crew Project Soul. He's since expanded his range to incorporate more foundation, but in the game he's a little limited on the footwork, instead favouring the power and freezes. Physicx can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Darkness. In addition to being a playable character in B-Boy Jam mode, Physicx is also one of the crew partners who becomes available during the Pro Scene phase of the Livin' Da Life mode. Toprock: TOPROCK, phyz step right, phyz step left, bounce right, bounce left, side-step right, side-step left, cross-step right, cross-step left Footwork: SIX-STEP, baby love, zulu spin, bicycle pump, cc, criss cross, hand- glide Power: ELBOWSPIN, shoulderspin, windmill, elbowtrack, flare, airflare, piked airflare, headspin, 1990, inverse 1990, rivers 1990, turtle, 2000, hollow 2000 Freezes: BABY FREEZE, airbaby, hanging airbaby, handstand, handstand hang, headstand, shoulder freeze, planche, planche cross, head hollowback, hollowback, hollowback cross, hollowback plank, inverted hollowback open, inverted hollowback cross, y-freeze, handhop, handhop grab, air freeze, forearm freeze Entry: Blow Up! (freeze) o Sonic Raised in Colombia but now living in Copenhagen, Denmark, "Sonic da Humanoid" represents and choreographs the Natural Effects crew. Although not exactly lacking in footwork and power, his specialist subject here is clearly freezes. Sonic can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Benny. Toprock: TOPROCK, rocking, indian step, bounce right, bounce left, star turn, side-step Footwork: THREE-STEP, six-step, mini-swipe, macaca, elbow rock, knee rock, cc, cc switches, commando cc, knee twist, applejack Power: BACKSPIN, swipe, munchmill, 1990, turtle, headspin, headspin glide, tucked headspin, headspin drill, future float Freezes: BABY FREEZE, baby hop, baby jump, baby crickets, sonic rock, sonic rock v2, forearm freeze, one-armed forearm freeze, forearm stand, air freeze, headstand, shoulder freeze, pencil freeze, jazz split, handstand, kicking handstand, scissor handstand, hollowback, head freeze, twist freeze Entry: Blow Up! (footwork) o Rosa Roc As you can see below, Ms Roc is pretty light on techs and, of the few she has, only two of them are classed as Medium and none are Hard. This makes for a bit of a challenge in her second and third battles in Survivor mode on Hard diff where you have to compete for the Blow Up medal! I recommend collecting and saving your Hype for a Special Entry in both of these battles, using your two toprock variations (Indian Step Right and Star Step) and hoping that both your opponents under-perform! Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, indian step right, march step, star step Footwork: SIX-STEP, cc, baby love, three-step Power: WINDMILL, backspin, swipe Freezes: BABY FREEZE, chair, headstand, sidebaby, shoulder freeze, handstand Entry: Handstand Walk! o Ruen American b-boy Ronnie Ruen doesn't waste time with toprock - it's straight into an impressive array of power moves, as demonstrated when he took the solo title at the UK B-Boy Champs a few years back. His talent for the power move category is such that his Base Move is the Airflare! :o Toprock: TOPROCK Footwork: MINI-SWIPE, elbow mini-swipe, three-step kick, six-step Power: AIRFLARE, tombstone airflare, munch airflare, airflare tap, airflare hop, airflare glide, headspin, headspin drill, headspin pump, 1990, 1990 drill, halo, halo tap, illusion halo, halo glide double grab, ruened halo, halo glide grab, windmill, bellymill, munchmill, coin drop, airtrack, flare, elbowtrack, hopping elbowtrack, elbowtrack walk Freezes: INVERT, piked invert, chair, baby freeze, forearm stall, hollowback, head hollowback, halo freeze, headstand, double forearm freeze Entry: Blow Up! (footwork) o Crumbs Like Ruen above, Crumbs comes from America and is part of the Style Elements crew. He has a wide and well-balanced range of moves in the game, including variations of his own "Sick-Step" footwork and a decent number of freezes. Crumbs can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Ivan. In addition to being a playable character in B-Boy Jam mode, Crumbs is also one of the crew partners who becomes available during the Pro Scene phase of the Livin' Da Life mode. Toprock: TOPROCK, typewriter left, typewriter right, head flip Footwork: SICK-STEP, travelling sick-step, sick-step run around, sick-step rollover, sick-step elbow rock, three-step, three-step mini-swipes, cc, cc sling, sweeps, baby love, kneespin, floor rock, applejack Power: 1990, 1990 drill, style 1990, thread 1990, windmill, killa windmill, killa thread, flare, matrix, coin drop, coin drop moon-kick, elbow- spin, headspin Freezes: HANDSTAND, ninja, floor ninja, air freeze, jazz split, jazz split thread, jazz split roll, headstand, headstand kicks, chair, plank, elbowstand, elbowstand press, baby freeze, switch baby freeze, head hollowback, head hollowback cross, airbaby, airbaby plank, scissor freeze Entry: Blow Up! (freeze) o Crazy Legs I would hope that the most famous b-boy in the world needs no introduction, but I better give a quick one anyways. Legs was one of the earliest members of the legendary Rock Steady Crew and became its president in 1981, now leading its numerous chapters worldwide. His appearances in the movie Flashdance (both the street scene and as a body-double for the lead actress at the end!) played a key role in raising international awareness of breaking; he also appeared in the classic Hip-Hop movies Wild Style, Style Wars and - during the infamous battle at the Roxy - Beat Street. He was one of the lead consultants for FSG during the development of the game and he appears in it as a playable character in B-Boy Jam mode, as the host of the UK B-Boy Champs stage and in a mentor role in Livin' Da Life mode. As you might hope and expect with an OG of the scene, his move-set showcases a number of old skool breaking moves. Crazy Legs can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Kmel. Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, march step, brooklyn rock, cross-step, crazy rock, lil' crazy rock Footwork: THREE-STEP, six-step, crazy commando six-step, zulu spin, scissor kick, cc, knee switch, macaca, knee rock, floor rock, criss cross, float, elbow walk Power: BACKSPIN, continuous backspin, web, swipe, bellymill Freezes: SHOULDER-FREEZE, shoulder rock, shoulder steady, chair, elbow chair, deck chair, ground hero, grounded, head bridge, baby freeze, jazz split, w freeze, rocksteady Entry: Blow Up! (footwork) I put together (I guess the correct term is "choreographed"!) a routine for Crazy Legs the last time I was playing the game. It's not optimised for any particular medal achievement - it's all about original old skool boogie-down Bronx flava! If you do the transitions as quickly as possible then it should fit exactly into a standard 45-second throwdown. Crazy Legs Old-Skool Combo ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Toprock [triangle] Brooklyn Rock [down down triangle] Three-Step [cross] Scissor Kick [down down cross] CC [left cross] Chair Freeze [down square] Head Bridge [up square] Elbow Walk [left left left cross] W Freeze [up up square] Knee Switch [right cross] Knee Rock [left left cross] Backspin [circle] Grounded [up down square] I don't intend to give sets for other characters but if you'd like to send me one I'll try it out and add it with a credit - if it's any good! o Benny Kimoto German b-boy Benny is part of the Flying Steps crew who also run their own dance academy in Berlin and have released several albums! What he lacks in tops and footwork he certainly makes up for with an excellent selection of both power moves and freezes. I'm pleased to see that Benny's moves include several headspin variants since he set the world record in the year 2000 for the most headspin rotations in a minute. (sixty-two!) In addition to being a playable character in B-Boy Jam mode, Benny is also one of the crew partners who becomes available during the Club Scene phase of the Livin' Da Life mode. Toprock: TOPROCK Footwork: CC, three-step, six-step, pretzels, step-over, back rock, body thread Power: WINDMILL, tombstone windmill, superman windmill, munchmill, 1990, 1990 grab, 1990 l-kick, inverse 1990, inverse 1990 grab, airflare, airflare tap, airflare hop, halo, elbowtrack, elbowtrack tap, one- handed elbowtrack, headspin, headspin glide, headspin grab, headspin ball, flying headspin, power headspin, forearm spin, inverse forearm spin, jackhammer, swipe, 2000 Freezes: L-KICK, l-kick grab, l-kick thread, forearm l-kick, forearm thread, forearm leg switch, handstand, handstand leg switch, benny freeze, killamoto, handhop, handhop kicks, forearm freeze, forearm freeze leg switch, forearm leg switch (sic), headstand, headstand cross, no-handed headstand, hollowback, twisted hollowback, shoulder freeze, one-armed shoulder freeze Entry: Blow Up! (power) o Mellow D Making up the numbers near the end of the list is b-girl Mellow D. Not much to see here, with very few footwork moves or freezes. Mellow D can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Rosa Roc. Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, indian step right, march step, star step Footwork: SIX-STEP, baby love, helicopter, zulu spin Power: WINDMILL, turtle, elbowtrack, swipe, backspin, halo, munchmill, airflare, headspin Freezes: BABY FREEZE, chair Entry: Torpedo Dive! o Rack The final character on the roster is Rack. Despite being a somewhat chunky fellow he can still pull off a Moon Kick entrance and Airflare! Rack can be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Hard with Physicx. Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, indian step right, march step, star step, brooklyn rock, cross step, crazy rock, lil' crazy rock Footwork: SIX-STEP, three-step, baby love, cc, helicopter, zulu spin Power: WINDMILL, munchmill, flare, airflare, turtle, elbowtrack, swipe, 1990, 2000, backspin, halo, headspin Freezes: BABY FREEZE, shoulder freeze, chair, headstand, handstand Entry: Moon Kick 360! .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Life Mode Crew Partners | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' Once you reach a certain stage in Livin' Da Life mode the game will introduce you to the concept of crew battles. Don't expect epic routines with six or seven b-boys on the floor at the same time though - you only ever have a two-person "crew" and only one person goes down at a time. Crew battles have two throwdowns per side. Your first one will always be with your main character (Custom) and by default the second throwdown will go to your current partner but it's important to note that you don't have to use them. Pressing [L1] or [R1] while your opponents are down lets you toggle between your two characters and chose who to use in the second stint. To be honest, I always use my own character because s/he usually has a better range of moves and I'm more familiar with the button combos and possible transitions. Your first crew partner will be Kool Rock - the dude in the hat who acts as your guide and mentor. After a while though another b-boy will offer to join forces with you and, if you beat a "crew partner challenge" (a battle against them with one throwdown each and all five medal categories), they will become your new partner, much to Kool Rock's displeasure. Haha! The practice mode in "The Lab" always begins with your main character but if you hold the left stick [up] to end your turn it will switch to your current crew partner so you can practise using their move-set. A number of crew partners become available as you play through the Club Scene and then the Pro Scene. I've listed them here in the order they appeared during my most recent play-through of the game. o Kool Rock (default) He may have the full set of toprock steps but he don't got much else! Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, indian step right, march step, star step, brooklyn rock, cross step, crazy rock, lil' crazy rock Footwork: SIX-STEP, three-step Power: WINDMILL, munchmill, flare, turtle, backspin, halo, headspin Freezes: BABY FREEZE, chair Entry: n/a o Garin (Club Scene) My man Garin is looking fresh with an old skool three-stripe Adidas tracksuit and a baseball cap worn at a jaunty angle. He's quite an improvement over Kool Rock, having a reasonable range of both footwork techs and freezes and only one less power move. Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, indian step right, march step, star step, brooklyn rock, cross step, crazy rock, lil' crazy rock Footwork: SIX-STEP, kneespin, bicycle pump, baby love, cc, coin drop, three- step, helicopter, zulu spin, web, pretzels Power: WINDMILL, flare, turtle, swipe, backspin, headspin Freezes: BABY FREEZE, shoulder freeze, chair, headstand, handstand, airbaby Entry: Moon Kick 360! o Spider (Club Scene) The Spiderman wears a distinctive orange Armory tee with a grey long-sleeve shirt underneath. He also wears a helmet so it's no surprise to see that Head- spins are part of his repertoire! I guess he's a fairly good all-rounder with a slight bias towards power. Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, indian step right, march step, star step, brooklyn rock, cross step, crazy rock, lil' crazy rock Footwork: SIX-STEP, three-step, baby love, cc, zulu spin Power: WINDMILL, munchmill, flare, turtle, elbowtrack, swipe, 1990, 2000, backspin, halo, airflare, headspin Freezes: BABY FREEZE, head hollowback, chair, headstand, handstand, airbaby Entry: Torpedo Dive! o Solo (Club Scene) The fourth crew partner is called Solo, which is a bit ironic. :) He's missing a couple of tops steps and is pretty light on the freezes and power. In theory each new crew partner is an upgrade but you have to wonder... Also I got these last three characters in the order they appear in the league chart, going from top to bottom! (Garin is above Spider who's above Solo) Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, indian step right, march step, star step Footwork: SIX-STEP, kneespin, bicycle pump, three-step, baby love, helicopter, cc, zulu spin, pretzels, floor rock, head swipe Power: WINDMILL, turtle, backspin, headspin Freezes: BABY FREEZE, chair Entry: n/a o Benny Kimoto (Club Scene) (see details in previous section) o Dino Flo (Pro Scene) This is the little kid with the woolly hat. His emphasis is on footwork (with four variations on the Six-Step) but overall the range of his move-set is pretty limited compared to Benny before him! Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, indian step right, march step, star step, brooklyn rock, cross step, crazy rock, lil' crazy rock Footwork: SIX-STEP, back shuffle, front shuffle, hop left, hop right, zulu spin, helicopter, cc, baby love, three-step, pretzels, kneespin, coin drop, floor rock, headswipe Power: WINDMILL, turtle, cricket, backspin Freezes: BABY FREEZE, chair, headstand Entry: n/a o Tiva (Pro Scene) Tiva is very limited when it comes to freezes but she has a full set of tops techs and a decent range of footwork and power including lots of useful Six- Step, CC and Windmill variations. Toprock: TOPROCK, salsa back, salsa front, indian step, indian step right, march step, star step, brooklyn rock, cross step, crazy rock, lil' crazy rock Footwork: SIX-STEP, back shuffle, front shuffle, hop left, hop right, shuffle right, roll, switches, rewind, crouched switch, criss cross, switch up, rotating six-step, six-step elbow rock, kneespin, three-step, baby love, cc, cc hop, cc roll right, no-handed cc, helicopter, zulu spin Power: WINDMILL, grab windmill, australian windmill, tombstone windmill, nutcracker windmill, coffin windmill, handcuff windmill, u.f.o, turtle, cricket, jackhammer, backspin, backspin tucked Freezes: CHAIR, headstand Entry: Burst! o Physicx (Pro Scene) (see details in previous section) o Crumbs (Pro Scene) (see details in previous section) .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 12 | THE STAGES s12 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' I wasn't sure what to call these... there are twenty-two "places where you can dance" in the game, or twenty-seven if you count the nocturnal versions, but for now I've decided to call them "stages". In some cases it's a literal stage - at a major international tournament - while in others it's a much less formal arena for performance, like a local park or city centre. In Livin' Da Life mode each event, like challenges and tournaments, is scripted and will always take place on the same stage. In B-Boy Jam mode you can select which stage to use; some are available from the start of the game and others have to be unlocked by completing Survivor mode on Medium difficulty with a specific character - I've given their names below in square brackets, or see Section 05 above for a full list of Survivor mode unlocks. The formal tournaments usually have an MC who commentates during the battles, making comments on the dancers' performances (e.g. when they win medals or don't use a certain move group). The characters Host 1, Rack and Crazy Legs all appear as MC's on these stages (Legs introduces the UK Champs, just like in real life where he co-hosts the annual event with Afrika Islam). o Southside Harbour / Southside Harbour Night [unlock Night with Lilou] A paved area next to the sea, with cardboard on the ground and graffiti throw- ups and tags on the walls. o Subway An abandoned subway station platform with cardboard on the ground, an oil-drum brazier burning, graf-bombed walls, an old train with a wildstyle piece on it and an old skool boombox providing the tunes. o Stormdrain / Stormdrain Night [unlock Night with Kmel] A spot under a bridge in a stormdrain - probably inspired by the LA River. There's plenty of graffiti around, including a large "FSG" on the ground. In the nighttime version there's cardboard on the ground, braziers burning and several street-racer cars, one of them with a big soundsystem in the back. o Gym A classic American school gymnasium, with a wooden floor, basketball markings and basket, bleachers and a stage at the back. There's also a graf mural and a boombox playing. o Grand Jam [unlock with Mouse] This looks like it might be at the same gym? There's a DJ playing on stage. o City Park / City Park Night [unlock Night with Rack] A traditional b-boy spot in an urban park, next to a statue, with a large roll of lino on the ground. o IBE [unlock with Benny] This is the International Breakdance Event, also known as the "Notorious IBE", a (usually!) annual event held in the Netherlands. You dance on the floor in front of a large crowd, with the decks and DJ on a stage. ---> http://www.thenotoriousibe.com o The Tower / The Tower Night [unlock Night with Kazuhiro] A perfect ordinary b-boy venue - on a helipad on top of a skyscraper! :9 o Urban Games [unlock with Darkness] This is the Sprite Urban Games event which was held annually on Clapham Common in London and included BMX and skating competitions in addition to b-boying. It's an outdoor stage with a DJ and large soundsystem, tiered seating on both sides and some comprehensive advertising coverage for Armory! o FSS Korea [unlock with Physicx] This is an outdoor FreeStyle Session event in the Far East. There's a wooden floor, a FSS banner, a DJ in the corner and a crowd watching. ---> http://www.freestylesession.com o The Jam Down [unlock with Mellow D] A sunken tiled dancefloor in a club with some stylish inset strip-lighting. There's a DJ playing on stage behind a "Big Smoke" banner. o Downtown / Downtown Night [unlock Night with Host 1] An intersection in a pedestrianised city centre, going down on cardboard. I would describe this as a Chinatown location but there's some Japanese katakana text in the background so I guess it's supposed to be either a "Little Japan" district in a US city or somewhere actually in Japan? o Urban Outlaws [unlock with Crumbs] A raised stage resembling the "dohyou" ring used for a sumo wrestling contest. There's a Freestyle Battle logo on the floor, large crowd and DJ with a video screen behind him. o Graffiti Beach A paved area next to a beach with a lifeguard tower and 4x4, dancing on card- board. Contrary to the name, there's very little graf in evidence! o FSS USA [unlock with Rosa Roc] The FreeStyle Session again, this time in America. The venue has a black and white checked floor (which reminds me of the Radiotron in LA - or a masonic lodge!) and stairs leading up to the balconies. o Adidas Stage An outdoor stage in a large city with a big crowd. If it wasn't already clear from the name, the design makes it pretty obvious who the sponsor is! Even the DJ booth has been made into a giant Adidas* trefoil logo. o UK Champs [unlock with Hong 10] This is a pretty accurate recreation of the main stage at the UK B-Boy Champs which is held annually at the Brixton Academy in London, specifically the 2005 championships which was the tenth anniversary year. The only things missing are the sponsor logos on the backdrop and host Crazy Legs, promoter Hooch and the judges sitting along the back, although you do get commentary from Legs (which can be a little weird if he's battling too as you get him commentating on his own performance!). ---> http://www.bboychampionships.com o The Plaza A city-centre spot between a staircase with a graf piece on it, a cafe and a construction site. o Battle of the Year Cypher** [unlock with Ivan] On the floor at the BOTY crew event in Germany, in a dimly-lit circle, amidst a crowd. The main stage is visible in the background. ---> http://www.battleoftheyear.de o Rock Steady Anniversary*** [unlock with Crazy Legs] A reunion event for the legendary Rock Steady Crew with a wooden floor, large crowd, DJ on stage and RSC banner behind. In the game, Crazy Legs describes the location as being "in New York city, the Mecca of Hip-Hop culture". o Red Bull: King of the Ring [unlock with Sonic] A large Red Bull-branded boxing ring with a wooden floor and large crowd at one of their 'King of the Ring' events o Street Final [unlock with Ruen] Finally an outdoor urban basketball court by night, with a broken concrete floor and plenty of graf on the walls. *Adidas are also one of the four sponsors available in Livin' Da Life mode so you can unlock some old skool tracksuits and classic three-stripe sneakers. :) **The "cypher" is another name for a b-boy circle; the term originates from The Nation of Gods and Earths but is commonly used in Hip-Hop. ***The Rock Steady Crew celebrated their 29th anniversary in 2006, the year that the game was first released. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 13 | THE TUNES s13 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' I have to say I think the music selection in the game is really good. There's a top selection of classic b-boy Funk breaks tracks from the 70's, some quality old skool Hip-Hop and some nice new stuff too. I've been playing the game a lot while writing this guide and, far from getting tired of hearing the same tracks over and over, they're still growing on me. I'm not the only fan of the music in the game. B-Boy was nominated in the sound- track category at the UK's BAFTA Video Games awards in 2006 and, according to the Babe Ruth website no less, it won Best Music Game (PSP) and runner-up Best Music Game (PS2) at E3. .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | The Tracks | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' There are in total thirty-six music tracks included in the game, although in both modes some have to be unlocked. In Livin' Da Life mode they are unlocked as you progress through the three "scenes" and can then be viewed in the "jukebox" on your computer (which lets you modify the playlist for the practice mode). In B-Boy Jam mode you can earn them by beating Survivor on Easy (or in a few cases Hard) difficulty with different characters (see Section 05 for a list). The tracks are listed below in the order in which they unlock in Life mode (at the start you only have the first three). I've given tempos (beats per minute) for each track but these are only approximate (those live drummers may be funky but they can't always maintain an even speed!). You'll notice that the tracks unlock roughly in order of tempo, which makes sense - the faster tracks add to the difficulty a little. You may find that some of the tracks skip, perhaps once per throwdown, knocking the beat markers out of sync. I assume this is a technical fault but I like to imagine that it's a b-boy's heavy landing making the record needle jump! If you wait a couple of seconds you should find that the beat markers refresh and move back into the correct place. 1. 'The Phuncky Feel One' by Cypress Hill (110 bpm) Released as a single in the summer of 1991 and also featured on their debut self-titled LP in the same year. The original demo version has B-Real alone on vocal duties. 2. 'Energy Level' by B.T. Express (133 bpm) This is the closing track on their third LP - 'Energy to Burn' from 1976, their first album to be released on a major label (Columbia). Before I knew the title, I always used to think the vocal was "hey fella"! 3. 'Brothers on the Slide' by Cymande (116 bpm) One of the British band's biggest tunes, this was released on their third (and final) album, 'Promised Heights' from 1974. Cymande described their unique blend of Funk, Soul, Reggae and Afro rhythms as "Nyah-Rock". 4. 'Soul Clap' by Showbiz & AG (104 bpm) The first official release of this track by the NYC duo was in 1991 on Showbiz's own label. The original release is rare and quite valuable now. Showbiz produced KRS-One's infamous 'Sound of da Police'. (whoop whoop!) 5. 'Bringing it Back' by the Black Eyed Peas (104 bpm) Released in 2000 on their double-LP 'Bridging the Gap'. I guess this track's place on the game soundtrack was helped by the line about "all b-boys breakin' and bustin'..." There are several freeze markers to watch out for on this one. 6. 'Make Room' by Tha Alkaholiks (105 bpm) An early single from the west coast group, released in 1993 both as a single and on the album '21 & Over'. In keeping with the group's name, the image on the cover of the single was a photo taken outside a liquor store. 7. 'Way Cool' by Freestyle Fellowship (106 bpm) B-side to their 1993 single 'Hot Potato' and also featured on their LP 'Innercity Gruits' from the same year. Is it my imagination or is there a reference to "six-step" in the lyrics? This is another track with quite a number of spots where you can throw a freeze for extra Rhythm medal points. 8. 'Watch Out Now' by The Beatnuts (110 bpm) Released in 1999 as a single and on their 2LP 'A Musical Massacre'. The track is noticeably censored - I counted ten words removed and replaced by sound effects. The single includes both "Clean" and "Real" mixes so I guess we get the former in the game! 9. 'Holy Ghost' by The Bar-Kays (110 bpm) This was released as a single back in 1978 and they also included two versions of it on their six-track LP 'Money Talks' in the same year. Most of the band tragically lost their lives in 1967 in a plane crash (the same one that took Otis Reading) but the two surviving members were able to find new members and went on to write this classic. Some folks might recognise the break as one of the samples used on 'Pump up the Volume' by M|A|R|R|S in 1987. 10. 'Same Old Thing' by The Meters (110 bpm) Included on their 1970 album 'Struttin'. This track was sampled on Del tha Funkee Homosapien's track 'Same Ol' Thing' on his 'I Wish my Brother George was Here' album. 11. 'I Believe in Miracles' by the Jackson Sisters (110 bpm) First released in 1973 but reissued a few times since. All I can say is, what a tuuuune! :) 12. 'Give it up or Turnit a Loose' (Remix) by James Brown (115 bpm) The original, written by JB's manager Charles Bobbit, was released as a single in 1969 but it's the later versions, such as this remix, that include the all-important "clap your hands, stomp your feet" breakdown section. This was popularised by Kool Herc back in the day, using two copies to extend that break. 13. 'Get on the Good Foot' by James Brown (110 bpm) First released as a single and on the double LP of the same name in 1972. The track was co-written with Fred Wesley and Joe Mims. Coldcut sampled the horns from this definitive Funk track on their 'The Music Maker' single. 14. 'Don't Sweat the Technique' by Eric B & Rakim (110 bpm) The single release was in 1992 and it was also the title-track on the duo's fourth album which came out in the same year (this was to be their final album before they split). It's also the title music for this game. The track copies the horns from 'It's Just Begun' by the Jimmy Castor Bunch, a massive b-boy anthem (the one glaring omission on this list). 15. 'Juice (Know the Ledge)' by Eric B & Rakim (115 bpm) Released in 1991 for the soundtrack of 2-Pac movie 'Juice' (there are clips of the movie in the video) but also included - simply as 'Know the Ledge' - on the same album as the previous track. The solid breakbeat here makes it a dancefloor-friendly track. As with that other tune from the duo, they make great use of bass and horns too. 16. 'Cold Sweat' by James Brown (114 bpm) This was the title-track on an LP by James Brown & the Famous Flames. A seminal release back in 1967, some view it as being the first proper track in the Funk genre. This is one of five James Brown tracks included in B-Boy; this turned out to be a fitting tribute as The Godfather died on Christmas Day in 2006 - just three months after the game's launch. 17. 'Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud' by James Brown (115 bpm) Originally released as a 7" in '68 and then included on an album of the same name in the following year. This was the first James Brown song to feature Fred Wesley (see track 31) on trombone. Wesley went on to become the bandleader for James Brown's band, the JB's, in late 1970. 18. 'Organ Donor' by DJ Shadow (115 bpm) The original short version of this track is from his (absolutely essential) 1996 Mo Wax album 'Endtroducing...' but this is essentially the 'Extended Overhaul' remix from the 'High Noon' EP in the same year, sped up a little. There's a wicked organ hook on this tune (hence the punning title) and a great breakbeat but the latter does make for a complicated pattern of beat markers in the game. 'Organ Donor' was reworked heavily into a house track by Trevor Loveys entitled 'Organ Grinder' a couple of years ago, notably with a Hexstatic video compiled from vintage Monty Python clips! :) 19. '(This is) Something for the Radio' by Biz Markie (115 bpm) Released as a single and on his 'Goin Off' album, both in 1988. 'Goin Off' was his debut album, produced by influential Hip-Hop artist and producer Marley Marl. 20. 'The Mexican (Millennium)' by Babe Ruth (116 bpm) Taken from their 1972 debut LP 'First Base', recorded at the famous Abbey Road studios in London, 'The Mexican' features a big guitar riff based on Ennio Morricone's theme to spaghetti western 'For a Few Dollars More' and vocalist Janita Haan belting out lyrics about a soldier serving under Santa Anna during the 1836 Texan Revolt. This track is proof that not all the big tunes at the birth of Hip-Hop were by black American Funk acts - Babe Ruth was a white rock-band from England! Discovered by Hip-Hop's founding father, Kool DJ Herc was first to play this in The Bronx,* including it as part of what he called his "merry-go-round" segment where he would play only the instrumental breaks of records in order to get the dancers - who he dubbed his "b-boys" - hyped on the dancefloor. It went on to become one of the biggest and best loved anthems of the b-boy scene and it's also seen as a major rocking track so you'll often see some dancers busting some uprock to this song. The influence of the track is such that it's inspired several cover versions over the years, with a disco version by The Bombers in 1978, freestyle cover by John "Jellybean" Benitez (featuring the original vocalist) in 1984 and even German metallers Helloween paid tribute in 1999 on their covers album 'Metal Jukebox'; more recently Marc Hype & Jim Dunloop released their own cover version in 2006 too. Other artistes to be inspired include Todd Terry whose 1988 warehouse rave anthem 'Dreams of Santa Anna' copies the Morricone hook and has a few vocal samples from 'The Mexican', Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force whose massive 1982 electro track 'Planet Rock' also uses the Morricone bit and The Funky Four whose 'Feel It (The Mexican)' from 1983 on Sugar Hill copies some of the guitar and percussion parts and uses the same lyrical metre (but different words). That all important break is actually very short on the original track but in the game it's been extended and watch out for the two sets of doubled beats per bar (dum d-dum dum-dum d-dum). The break has been sampled for a few Hip- Hop tracks in the past, notably 'Africa (Goin' Back Home)' by Doug E Fresh and 'On The Run' by the Jungle Brothers - both from 1988 - and 'Prisoners Of War' by Organized Konfusion from 1991. 'The Mexican Millennium' version of the track was put together in 2006 (the same year as the game) for inclusion on 'Que Pasa', the band's first album release since 1976! This album was finally released last year (2009). PS As you might've guessed from the length of this comment, I'm a big fan! *In their fantastic book Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: The History Of The Disc Jockey (Headline Books 1999) Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton describe an event from the early days in The Bronx. Sometimes DJ's would battle to see who had the most powerful system and Kool Herc's mighty "Herculoids" rig was recognised as the clear victor. Jazzy Jay of Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation organisation says "Kool Herc used to just destroy people" and relates the story of one night when his crew were playing at a party, rockin' the house, ...and then Herc arrived. He took his time setting up his soundsystem and then started talking over it, repeatedly asking Bam to turn his system down - each request louder than the one before until pretty soon it's drowning out the Zulu speakers. ...And *then* he drops a record and it's 'The Mexican' with its heavy b-line and it just totally blows them away! Although Herc is credited with bringing 'The Mexican' to The Bronx I think it hit Manhattan somewhat earlier. As reported in Bill and Frank's book, the band's 'First Base' LP proved most successful in Canada where it was heard by Steve D'Acquisto during a visit to Montreal; this lead to it getting played at David Mancuso's legendary NYC venue The Loft where it became a firm favourite with party-goers before later getting picked up by other DJ's across the city. 21. 'Rock Creek Park' by The Blackbyrds (115 bpm) This was the opening track on their 1975 album 'City Life' and also included on the album 'Night Grooves' and as the B-side on a couple of their singles three years later. Often played by Bambaataa back in the day. You'll sometimes hear members of the Rock Steady Crew singing "Rock Steady Park" (instead of the correct lyrics) in memory of the playground at W98th and Amsterdam where they used to meet. I like to think that's why this track is the one you can unlock with Crazy Legs in Survivor mode. More trivia... The title inspired one of many puns on Ninja Tune's 'Trumpet Riffs' album where one of the tracks was named "Rock Creak Parp"! The group was formed from students of Donald Byrd (who had previously released an album entitled 'Black Byrd') hence the spelling of the band's name. 22. 'Express' by B.T. Express (115 bpm) One of their biggest early singles, 'Express' was released on 7" in 1974 and included as the opening track on their first album, 'Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)' in the same year. I think it's a really pretty tune. The beat pattern in the game is really sparse, with only three markers per bar. 23. 'Hot Pants (I'm Coming, I'm Coming, I'm Coming)' by Bobby Byrd (115 bpm) This one came out as a single back in 1972. Did you know that "Bobby Byrd Hot Pants I'm Coming" is an anagram of "My moth trips dancing b-boy Bob"? I'm guessing you didn't. *8^) Watch out for all the little yellow freeze sections on this track. 24. 'Love to the World' by L.T.D. (114 bpm) This was the title-track on the Carolina band's 1976 album, also released as a single with 'Get Your It Together' on the flip. Trivia fans will be keen to learn that the band's name L.T.D. stands for "Love, Togetherness and Devotion". (awwh!) For the first ten seconds or so this track has only one beat marker (the one-beat) for each bar of music. 25. 'Think (About It)' by Lyn Collins (115 bpm) Lyn Collins, a.k.a. "The Female Preacher", released this classic in 1972 as the title-track on her debut LP. The album was produced by James Brown and I believe he wrote and arranged this track too. This tune is just packed full of killer breaks and consequently has been sampled hundreds of times. The most widely known is the "woo yeah" break which was the basis of many tracks in the Hip-House scene and beyond. In the game the beat wheel has only three beat markers per bar so do your best to hit all three on each revolution. Like 'Rock Creek Park' above, this track was included on the playlist of the in-game rare-groove radio station in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. 26. 'Champ' by Breakestra (115 bpm) This take on The Mohawks' 1968 Funk classic 'The Champ' was performed by the west-coast Funk covers band Breakestra and released on their album 'The Live Mix Part 2' around 2001. 27. 'Brother Green (The Disco King)' by Roy Ayers Ubiquity (120 bpm) This song's the opening track on the band's 1975 Polydor album 'Mystic Voyage', also reissued on CD in 1993. 'Brother Green' was included on one of Street Beat's Ultimate Breaks & Beats compilations in 1987 which led to the song getting sampled for a number of Hip-Hop tracks in later years (like many of the tracks in the game). 28. 'Apache' by Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band (120 bpm) This is a cover version of a hit by The Shadows which topped the UK charts in the summer of 1960 (which was, in turn, inspired by the Burt Lancaster movie of the same name). The Bongo Band's version was on their 'Bongo Rock' album, first released in 1973, which lead to the track sometimes being known as "The Rock". 'Apache' is unquestionably one of the biggest anthems in the breaking scene, if not the biggest. Credit for its "discovery" in the Hip-Hop world goes, once again, to the legendary Kool Herc. Here's a great quote from Hip-Hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash referring to the early days of the scene in The Bronx, taken from Alex Ogg's excellent book The Hip-Hop Years: A History Of Rap (Channel 4 Books 1999)... "We were playing obscure records but we really didn't have an obscure record that stood out. And 'Apache' just stood out. [...] Herc had me and Bam going when he played that song. We was trying to look at the label. He kept that quiet for a long time until eventually I found out what it was. A monster record. Very important." In the game the track has been blatantly cut up to extend the break. 29. 'Open Sesame' by Kool & the Gang (120 bpm) This is the opening track on the band's LP of the same name from 1976. It was included on the soundtrack of motion picture 'Saturday Night Fever' the following year. 30. 'Yellow Sunshine' by Yellow Sunshine* (120 bpm) This is the title-track on the band's only album which, obviously, was self- titled! The song was released on LP and single in 1973. 'Yellow Sunshine' is very popular in the rocking scene, a fact which b-boys acknowledge by doing their own brand of uprock to the track. The version in the game has a long percussive introduction so if you throwdown first in a 2x45" battle you'll pretty much be dancing over the instrumental drum intro. *When it comes to weather, yellow sunshine is preferable to yellow snow! ;) 31. 'Blow your Head' by Fred Wesley & the JB's (125 bpm) Taken from the 1974 LP 'Damn Right I am Somebody' produced by the late great James Brown; he co-wrote this tune with Fred too. Watch out for the obvious sample on 'Public Enemy No 1' on PE's first album. 32. 'Call me Super Bad' by James Brown (125 bpm) This was released in 1971 and included on his 'Soul Classics' collection the following year. The "watch me" vocal is another of the many samples used on 'Pump up the Volume' by M|A|R|R|S and the Super Bad break was used on 'Bring Forth the Guillotine' by UK Hip-Hop act Silver Bullet in 1989. The "up and down, and round and round" lyrics seem appropriate for a breaking game. Like 'Express' and 'Think (About It)' above, this track has only three beat markers per bar. 33. 'Rated X' by Kool & the Gang (129 bpm) 'Rated X' is taken from the band's fifth album, 'Good Times' from 1973. It also appeared on their 'Greatest Hits' compilation two years later. The horns were sampled in 2004 by nu-skool breaks act the Plump DJ's on a track called 'Creepshow'. 34. 'The Life of the Party' by Jackson Five (129 bpm) This track is at the beginning of the B-side of the guys' 1974 Motown LP 'Dancing Machine'. The album cover features a quincunx of Jacksons. :) 35. 'Love the Life you Live' by Black Heat (132 bpm) This is the final track on the A-side of Black Heat's 1974 album 'No Time To Burn' which was reissued in 2001 as a 2CD release (with their self-titled album from 1972 on the other disc). 'Love the Life you Live' also appears on the third compilation album in the excellent 'The Breaks' series on UK label Harmless. 36. 'Funkier than a Mosquito's Tweeter' by Nina Simone (140 bpm) Taken from Nina's 1974 album 'It is Finished', this track also gave its name to a later Ike & Tina Turner compilation. With its mad drum work-out, this is perhaps a little heavier than you might expect from Nina S. In this game the track starts about two minutes in, skipping the long intro, and it was played the same way at the 2002 UK B-Boy Champs where co-host Crazy Legs was feelin' it so much that he asked the DJ to drop it again so he could take to the stage to bust some classic toprock steps to it, losing his pocket-change in the process! :) .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | The Album | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' A CD compilation album featuring eighteen songs from the game and entitled 'Music from B-Boy' was released in 2006, shortly after the game's Euro release. The tracklist is as follows... 1. 'I Believe in Miracles' by Jackson Sisters 2. 'Think (About It)' by Lyn Collins 3. 'Blow your Head' by Fred Wesley & The JB's 4. 'Bringing it Back' by Black Eyed Peas 5. 'The Life of the Party' by Jackson Five 6. 'Love to the World' by L.T.D. 7. 'Organ Donor' by DJ Shadow* 8. 'Hot Pants (I'm Coming, I'm Coming, I'm Coming)' by Bobby Byrd 9. 'Open Sesame' by Kool & the Gang 10. 'Don't Sweat the Technique' by Eric B & Rakim 11. 'Brother Green (The Disco King) by Roy Ayers Ubiquity 12. 'Get on the Good Foot' by James Brown 13. 'Brothers on the Slide' by Cymande 14. 'Holy Ghost' by The Bar-Kays* 15. 'The Mexican Millennium' by Babe Ruth 16. 'Rated X' by Kool & the Gang 17. 'Cold Sweat' by James Brown 18. 'Funkier than a Mosquito's Tweeter' by Nina Simone *Unfortunately the album features inferior versions of these two tracks, not the ones that appear in the game. 'Organ Donor' is the original short version from 'Endtroducing...' and 'Holy Ghost' is the "Reborn" remake from 'Money Talks'. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 14 | THE CODES s14 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' There are a number of numeric cheat codes for B-Boy which can be used to turn off certain features or unlock content. These can be input by going to the main menu then choosing Options followed by Cheats. If you enter a code successfully you will get an on-screen message telling you what effect it had. You should note that the codes for Livin' Da Life mode (at the bottom of the table below) only take effect after you start a new career and this will over- write any progress on your current save so you might want to think about using another memory card* for a cheat save file. 26939 | Deactivate all cheat codes -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 56239 | Hide "beat wheel" display during game -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 41549 | Hide "beat wheel", set list and chain counter during game -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 15483 | All characters have full Hype bar -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 43649 | Moves are never hidden with "???" in move lists -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 93665 | Unlock Crazy Legs character (B-Boy Jam mode) -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 83083 | Unlock "Red Bull: King of the Ring" stage (B-Boy Jam mode) -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 92750 | Unlock all stages (B-Boy Jam mode) -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 85363 | Unlock all characters (B-Boy Jam mode) -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 85872 | Unlock all songs (B-Boy Jam mode) -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 34589 | Unlock all stages, characters and songs (B-Boy Jam mode) -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 50361 | Unlock all moves (Livin' Da Life mode)** -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 78727 | Unlock all songs (Livin' Da Life mode) -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 20014 | Unlock all clothes (Livin' Da Life mode) -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 39572 | Unlock all moves, songs and clothes (Livin' Da Life mode)** -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 17345 | Jump to Club Scene (Livin' Da Life mode) -------+------------------------------------------------------------- 11910 | Jump to Pro Scene (Livin' Da Life mode) *This is easy/cheap if you're playing on a backwards-compatible PS3 as you can create as many virtual PS2 memory cards as you like. I have loads! :) **Not only do these codes unlock all the moves but each move will also be fully levelled-up (five stars) and have the maximum number of transitions available. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 15 | THE END s15 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' All good things must come to an end, including this guide! ;) .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Contact | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' I welcome feedback, corrections and contributions for this guide and questions about the game. You can email me at barticle at hotmail.com - obviously changing the "at" to an @ and removing the spaces. It would be helpful if you include the word "B-Boy" in the subject line to get my attention! .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Thanks | '------------------------------------------------------------------------------' I would like to thank the following... o FreeStyleGames for making the game (I always cringe slightly when I read notes like that at the end of a game guide but sincerely, guys, good job!) o xpertise311 and ChamillionLive for posting good advice o everyone on the bboy.org forums o Channel 4 for their TV coverage of the UK B-Boy Champs national finals o whoever decided to name all the streets on Bohan island (i.e. The Bronx) in Grand Theft Auto IV after b-boying moves - respect! :) I will be happy to give credit and thanks to anyone who makes a contribution. I'm looking forward to a short break from guide-writing now but with the Euro launch of the Nintendo DSi XL next month I'll be back with a vengeance soon! Peace, Bart -- B-Boy Guide Copyright 2010 James R. Barton Initial version 1.00 completed 16 February 2010 Current version 1.02 completed 19 February 2015 All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. This guide may be downloaded and printed for personal, private, non-commercial use only. This work is subject to copyright. It may not be hosted online or otherwise distributed publically or reproduced either in whole or in part without the advance written consent of the author. Any violation would constitute an infringement of copyright and is strictly prohibited. The only websites with the author's consent to publish this guide are GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com) and its affiliates (i.e. Gamespot) and psp.MMGN.com in Oz! If you find this file hosted on any other site I would be grateful if you would inform me at the email address given at the top. Thanks!