The PlayStation played host to a variety of bizarre controllers, from the twisty neGcon to the one-handed ASCII Grip, but the novelty that took the market by storm late in the PlayStation’s life was the dance mat. The catalyst was Konami’s Dancing Stage Euromix, a localised version of the Dance Dance Revolution games that had already taken the world’s arcades by storm, including my local Sega Park. It had been a perfect fit in arcades, providing the right mix of broad appeal and a platform for showmanship – people just couldn’t resist having a go at Word Up or Video Killed The Radio Star.

When it finally arrived on PlayStation, I was very excited indeed – after all, the arcade game had proven an expensive habit for my sister and I to maintain at £1 a credit, and that was if we could even get on the machine. When we got it, we were disappointed to learn that the song list wasn’t quite the same as that of the arcade machine, but that was quickly tempered by the fact that we could play it whenever we wanted and fail in the comfort of our own living room. We definitely became a lot bolder about picking harder difficulties and faster songs!

While I might have shown my newly-refined skills in the arcade, if I was ever any good at Dancing Stage Euromix, it was down to the PlayStation version. Now, if only those soft dance mats didn’t break down quite so easily…