Let's first address the songlist, as that's what seems to be causing arguments already. Yes, there are Kyle Ward songs in the game. No, they are not the bulk of the songlist. Most of the songs are indeed songs from older Pump mixes, some of which apparently did not make it back for New Xenesis. Then you've got a good number of Kyle's songs from ITG1 and 2 (not all of them though), along with a handful of songs that were rumored to be in ITG3. Stop & Go, Esperanza, Ra, Hasen Mich... probably some others I'm forgetting. I believe there are some other new songs by artists who aren't Kyle too, but like I said, I honestly can't always tell which songs are new because I have no access to newer Pump mixes. Anyway, there's around 126 songs or so on this beta, and I don't know if more will be included later.
For what it's worth, the step patterns for the returning ITG songs are not identical to their 4-panel counterparts, i.e. there's nothing like the repeated Right arrow stomp on Utopia. Zodiac's chart looked a lot easier too. ITG1 songs like Utopia and Xuxa were edited down time-wise. Robotix has no 1337 bpm speedup, instead it's just one long pause in the middle, which is pretty lame. Xuxa has no BPM stops at all.
http://media.rhythmatic.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=4166
When you push Start, you're greeted with this screen. The "Progressive" mode is not selectable in this beta. I think it's safe to assume that the Progressive mode will likely be Marathons with scripted modifiers and all that. Also note the "INSERT CARD" at the bottom-left of the screen. In this beta there's no USB support, but it will be in the final. Presumably it'll save song records and modifier preferences, but who knows what else.
http://media.rhythmatic.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=4168
Here is what the song select screen looks like. One of the new "borrowed" enhancements from ITG is that you can see the number of steps, holds, 3/4/5 arrow steps, jumps, mines, and rolls. And of course you get to see the machine record, and the not-yet-implemented personal best through USB card support. For me, being able to see the number of steps is another welcome change. I always seemed to have a knack for finding Pump songs that were misrated because I had no idea what I was getting into when I selected the song. At least here you have a better idea of what to expect.
The song select timer in this beta is 40 seconds, which is waaaay too short.
http://media.rhythmatic.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=4170
Selecting a song brings up the difficulty/modifier selection menu. Pretty much all the modifiers from ITG are in here too. One important change Pump players might want to know about are the noteskins - by default, the arrows are colored by 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc. Of course in old Pump versions you had orange for UL and UR, yellow for Center, blue for DL and DR. If you prefer that format, fear not! Select the "Classic" noteskin and you're good to go.
Speed modifier wise, it seems that they're faster than what the same mod would be on a previous Pump game... i.e. x1 feels more like x1.5 on older Pump mixes. I ended up playing most of my songs on x1.5 because x2 often felt way too fast... but maybe that's because the pads were pushed up pretty close to the screen. So I would highly advise against picking x3 on anything if it's your first time playing this version. Also, the available speed mods for selection were (this might not be 100% right): x0.25, x0.5, x0.75, x1, x1.5, x2, x3, x4, x8, C200, C400, Random. Yeah, those are two pretty horrible choices for C mods.
(P.S. I thought Aliens In Our Midst was really fun, yes it's very slow and hand-heavy, but I enjoy hands and much prefer to play songs that don't have 8 bazillion steps)
http://media.rhythmatic.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=4172
Ehh, figures the only results screen I'd take a picture of would end up blurring and looking like shit. Ignore the generic Pump it Up Pro banner, the game does show the banner of whatever song you played, but some songs did not have banners in place yet. So you've got mines and rolls from ITG, but that's not the only things that were borrowed - there is now a "Superb" step timing in the line of Marvelous and Fantastic. The Perfect window has always been huge enough to drive a truck through in Pump, the timing windows in Pump Pro... are roughly the same size as ITG, but slightly looser. It certainly felt easier to stay on beat with Superbs than it was with Fantastics, although I was sort of annoyed that Superb and Perfect have roughly the same font color, making it a little more difficult to tell when you're going off-beat. Also, you can't see your percentage score until the song is over, there's no score display during the song.
Maybe it's a side effect of having slightly larger timing windows, but the song syncing? It felt wonderful. I can't think of a single song I played that felt "off". (it's worth noting that Bi Gals has an unpatched Supernova machine placed back-to-back with Pump Pro. I played one game of that while I was there and I was so spoiled by the nice syncing that it became impossible to get assloads of Greats)
http://media.rhythmatic.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=4176
yeah, I'm dreading having to read that on potential marathons ;o
At the beta test, the price is $1 / 3 songs, and there is NO Extra Stage. Whether it will be added later, I don't know. Also, double premium appears to be disabled, so Freestyle/Nightmare songs end up costing 2 songs. I'm sure this will be an operator-adjustable setting (hopefully defaults to On)
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