Boogie - Karaoke with a twist - 8/10

Before reading on please note that I cannot sing, I never played Singstar and I probably can't dance well either. I still had fun with this game though



Story:
Yes amazingly this game has a story mode.

You can choose from 5 characters in the game and complete each story which contains a mix of dancing and singing in each "chapter" to unlock songs, stages and items.

The story is amusing in a juvenile way (I wont spoil it here) and some of the conversations between the characters is witty. The conversations are printed on the screen in "speech bubble" type format and the sounds of the characters voices are musical. Very strange.

Characters:
You can choose one of 5 characters to play apparently called "Boogs"... WTF?!?!

Julius

A mean green entertaining machine. He's an ET who comes to Earth for a holiday from his career touring the universe entertaining the masses.

Bubba

A big fat prawn guy who dresses like Elvis but can dance like a demon. He works in a petrol station and craves seafood.

Lea

A girl with a dream of being a pop star.

Jet

This guy talks about himself in the 3rd person and thinks he is fantastic. He is apparently "World Famous".

Kato

For a zen touch there is Kato the martial arts cat who is from some reason Bubbas sensai. Don't ask me, you have to play the game to make sense of it.

Other characters are little guys called "Freaks" who the characters talk to and who you can interact with on the dance floor (there is one behind Lea in this picture).



Controls:
Other reviews have unfairly lambasted the controls for this game and although they are by no means perfect I feel that the game utilised the Wiimote pretty well.

The singing component requires a microphone which is helpfully packaged with the game. The microphone seems to work well, however my singing is atrocious and I couldn't hit a note if it was the size of a barn so I can't judge it on things like pitch etc. However even with my awful voice I managed to get pretty high scores, which is just as well really.

Dancing is done with the Wiimote and Nunchuk. The Wiimote speaker is used as a metronome to help you stay on beat, however if you have the TV volume up loud you cant hear it, but that doesn't matter as there is an on screen flashing meter which you can use instead.

To make your character dance you flick the Wiimote to the beat, flicking it in different directions alters the characters dance slightly which stops repetition and also increases your score. A good feature of this game is that if you just stand there doing the same thing your points decrease and then drop to zero unless you alter your movements or change your dance style using the A button. The player also gets on screen prompts to change style.



There is a special moves section where if you pull off combos you get big scores. To do these you need to stay on beat and fill up the Boogie-Meter, once you have enough Boogie Power you hold down the B button and perform the required moves with the Wiimote. You have to do the moves to the beat and also make clear gestures with the remote. No random flicks!! You can also move around the stage using either the Wiimote joypad or the nunchuk joystick.

The nunchuk is pretty superfluous to the game and the moves it uses feel tacked on. There are solo sections during dances where the character sings, these are performed by the player pressing the Z button when prompted (pretty lame). There is also a "Strike-a-pose" function which if you are dancing and hold down Z then move the nunchuk and wiimote to the target on the screen you get a snapshot taken and points for "striking a pose" this drains your Boogie Meter (also pretty lame).

Graphics:
This game is cartoony in its look. However the characters move very smoothly and the special combo moves are great to watch. The stages the characters dance on are lovingly detailed and textured with good depth.



Sound:
Other reviews on this site have listed the songs on the game. They are not performed by the original artist, however I found that the singers were adequate for the job and enjoyed reliving a lot of 80's and 90's music. There are songs from this century also

Scoring:
Points are earned by singing/dancing "correctly". You can also get points from the Freaks who appear whilst you dance with coins which give you:
Tokens - You can spend these in the shop to buy songs, stages or outfits for your character.
x2 - Your dance moves earn double points
Boogie Boost - Fills your boogie bar instantly allowing you to pull off great combos.



You earn Tokens for scoring high enough to get a "medal" after finishing a song/dance, difficulty is set by the player and basically it just moves the score bracket higher to get medals.

Modes:
Story Mode - Explained above

Party mode - Where you can dance against a friend
In this mode the Freaks can also give you coins which:
Reversomatic - Inverts the oppositions controls for a limited time
Freeze Burn - Immobilises your opponent for a limited time.

Karaoke Mode - Explained above





Video maker - You can perform or dance a song and then immediately after go to this mode to add special effects like fish and hearts (!) or if you like listening to yourself murdering Love Shack over and over this mode is for you. Yes, you can save these videos, and thankfully you can delete them too.

Niggles:
There is a distinct lag in the menu's when selecting a character, customising a character and just navigating, I found this annoying.

Not enough songs!! After being spoilt by the huge amount of songs on GH3 I felt this game could have had more songs.

If this game is aimed at children they don't know most of these songs. I felt this song content was aimed at people aged around 30+

Conclusion:
Overall I really enjoyed this game. The dancing section is lots of fun and I work up a bit of a sweat dancing around waving the wiimote. Singing is fun for me but not others, however if you can hold a tune then people may want to witness it I managed to get this game for $50, and that's all I think it is worth. Wait until it hits the bargain bin - at least you get a microphone out of it!

Graphics - 9/10
Story - 6/10
Gameplay - 8/10
Sound - 8/10

Submitted by Stormstruk 14/01/2008 221 12

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More Info:

Boogie

Other Reviews:

• jotendo Review 8/10 by jotendo
• Stormstruk Review 8/10 by Stormstruk

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