Suburban Reviews

We love our Wii. It’s probably the first system we’ve owned that I’ve spent any kind of real time playing. When Parent Bloggers Network offered me the chance to check out the new Boogie game for the system, I wasted no time accepting. This had to be good!

The game comes packaged with a microphone, the game, and 2 pairs of 3-D glasses. There is a 3-d effect in the music editing section, so I can say from experience if you plan to try that, keep them away from my your 2 year old or they may get torn up like tissue paper misplaced. *ahem*. The mic is corded, something that takes a few minutes to get used to, but not something you will even notice once you are acclimated.

Once you start, there are several options for activities. You create a character from a pretty limited selection of heads and clothes, and then chose from either karaoke, dancing, or story mode. Story mode tells the story of each character as you go through 3 sets of dancing and 2 sets of singing, to songs the Wii game picks.

The dancing I think is both the easiest and the hardest part of the game. Your natural inclination is to dance, but as I sat and played with it, I realized it is scoring you by your hand movements staying on the beat of the song. You literally can stand still and move just your hands up and down, and if you do it right, score really well. Maybe that’s a good thing for those of us who are, let’s say less than coordinated.

As far as the karaoke, I have very mixed feelings on it. I loved a few of the more recent songs, but I really, truly have a problem with the fact that they are heavily edited versions. So edited that it causes problems for those of us who know the songs by heart, and are left stumbling when huge chunks of lyrics are just missing. If the songs are so objectionable, why include them? There are plenty of current, somewhat child-friendly songs out there that wouldn’t involve butchering the music. Maybe this is where parental controls could come in? Don’t get me wrong, I am all about kid friendly games, particularly with having three children and owning every game system on the market. But I think when you are trying to make games that appeal to the whole family, you can’t just cater to the lower end, there has to be a good draw for adults to play too. Nintendo seemed to try to compensate for this by including older songs like YMCA, ABC, Brick House, and a few other 70’s and 80’s songs that were just before my time. Overall I just was not thrilled with the music selection, and sincerely hope they will be offering music packs in their download store in the near future.

That aside, the actual singing part was fun! Provided you aren’t shy. And you have a decent voice. And being slightly inebriated would help too. Lacking all that, I simply waited until my husband went out of town, and after the kids went down I tortured the dogs with my howling, complete with a cold and sore throat. Just from knowing the songs I picked I was able to score pretty high, and despite how bad I sounded, I had fun. So much fun I actually played it for about an hour straight, a rare thing for me.

Aside from the music choices the biggest downside for me was that I am NOT someone comfortable with performing in front of people. Obviously not Nintendo’s fault, but if you are not up for being goofy and looking foolish in the name of good fun, you might not enjoy the game that much. I would highly recommend getting it for the kids, all three of mine tried it and had a good time with it. The more outgoing members of our family had a blast with it also, and this really would make an amazing party game if you are into karaoke.

Head over to the Boogie site to check it out, and be sure to stop by the Parent Bloggers Network and see what others are saying about this game!

New here? Subscribe to the RSS to get info on all the latest products straight to your feed reader!RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!