GENRE
	Music
	DEVELOPER
	Electronic Arts Montreal
	PUBLISHER
	Electronic Arts
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1-2
	WI-FI ENHANCED
	No
	DS COMPATIBLE
	No
	BUY NOW AT

Music and rhythm games are becoming so big that GameStop's reorganizing its stores for the genre. Perhaps serendipitously, Electronic Arts Montreal is already surfing that wave with the Wii-exclusive Boogie. Part Karaoke Revolution, part Bust-a-Groove and part Taiko Drum Master, Boogie is a visually beautiful game with a killer soundtrack; but unfortunately, some shortcomings keep it out of the music genre's top echelons.

visuals

There are few developers pushing Wii's hardware, but EA Montreal delivers again just as it did with its previous title SSX Blur. Character and stage designs are charming, artsy and vibrant, beautifully enhanced with lush colors and glowing light effects. The user interface alone for navigating menus outside of the game is top notch and exciting just like SSX -- these people should make a course for other Wii developers to follow their lead, some character customization loading quibbles aside.

The five main dancers/singers are endearing to the point that Wii's Miis seem starkly lacking. The Mii comparison may seem irrelevant since Boogie's faces and body shapes can't be changed; but the game does allow for scores of customizations -- roughly 27 accessory, color or clothing options for each body part: head, torso, legs and feet. This means that while the characters have set personalities from the get-go, playing with over 120 little visual tweaks creates a significant sense of ownership and pride for your cute little Boog.

Their dance choreography is lively and complementary -- the girl is sexy and flirtatious, the leisure suit guy disco dances, and the muscle man throws in lots of flexes and flips. Most exciting to watch is the cat character, who uses lots of rapid spinning hovering moves, like something out of Crouching Tiger on fast forward.

The available performance stages are numerous and varied with two Asian-themed stages being particular standouts. Yet for as pretty as stages are, they're minimally animated and never have significant transformations dependent on performance. Music games from Karaoke Revolution to Elite Beat Agents have always tried to throw gamers off with visual fireworks, so it's disappointing to see little done with Boogie's stages.

audio

Boogie has a number of classic songs that have shown up in many other music video games (Love Shack, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, You're the One That I Want), but the overall collection is a standout in the genre. The tracklist is long and most songs are excellent for a dancing game, if not so much for karaoke. The selection is flavored by the five characters (the leisure suit guy's story focuses on the seventies selections, sexy girl has expectedly sexy/sassy songs), along with other additions that range from Jackson Five to Rihanna. Notably, there are even some Spanish language pop songs, a truly unusual but long overdue inclusion in a music video game.

In spite of all the great music, the game characters inexplicably have ridiculous Rare-styled babble voices that consist of multi-note twangs from a stereotyped instrument. The girl has a soft xylophone soundset that plays while her dialogue types across the screen; the martial arts cat has an plucked Asian string instrument; and the hip-hop kid has record scratches. These sound effects are annoying given the huge amounts of grating text the characters say and how much the sounds must be endured in story mode. Further, while no voice acting is expected in a Nintendo first party game, why isn't a third party title taking advantage of it in 2007?

gameplay

In single player story mode and the multiplayer dance-offs dancing is the same: yank the remote like a drumstick to the beat of the song. As if beating a virtual drum up, right, left and down, if yanked on-beat the dancer will perform a move that matches the direction of the remote, such as down performs a lunge or spin. Adding flavor, each character has three dance styles that are rotated with a button press, and after successfully dancing on-beat for about eight beats, the moves in each style become visually more complex and result in higher points awarded, so long as the combo chain is maintained. Repeating the same moves over and over will result in fewer points awarded, while all awarded points help fill a boost meter that can be depleted to try super dance moves via onscreen directional prompts or, if the nunchuk is attached, pose the character.

No sense of rhythm? Not a problem: the Wii remote's speaker ticks off every beat as a metronome. Focusing on just that and not the complex rhythms of some songs makes things all the easier. Yet perhaps that's the crux of the problem: progressing through a level is relatively simple and challenge-free once you have the hang of it, unless you just become fatigued or carpal tunnel rears its head in a particularly fast song.

Karaoke gameplay provides an extra slice of variety, and while it strives to emulate Karaoke Revolution with decent onscreen character lip-synching, a nice Logitech mic and pitch detection, it ultimately fails in execution. Onscreen bars represent the pitch words should be sung at, but singing (or, by some accounts, any noise from heavy breathing to a baby's wail) must start before the note should be sung in order for the game to recognize you're singing. Trying to sing exactly in synch with a song will result in shorter notes not being recognized and therefore earning no points. Instead, letting out a constant moan, on-pitch or not, will likely achieve not only completion, but a high score.

Further, while the soundtrack is excellent, most of the songs chosen are cruel demands upon a gamer attempting to sing with the faulty voice detection already in place. Do you know all the rapid-fire words to Black Eyed Peas' Get It Started? You may need a speed reading course, then. How about the near inscrutable notes and pitches of the synthesizer voices that sing M's Pop Muzik or Daft Punk's One More Time, dementedly used in the opening tutorial, no less? Some of these songs, karaoke-wise, are on par with R.E.M.'s It's the End of the World As We Know It. Forget trying to meet these challenges in single player mode: just rely on the monotone moan to get through since words aren't detected in spite of the game's heavy encouragement you say them.

Video-creation of memorable performances (dancing, singing or both) is an included bonus feature that's fun to play with for a little while, but not much else. Perhaps online sharing of these videos may have added more to the feature.

As a single player, there are many modes to choose from: story mode, dance and karaoke mode. Story mode is an ideal choice since it generates a lot of in-game cash that can be used to purchase songs, performance stages and character customizations. Unfortunately, the actual story crashes this otherwise lively game to a halt with static, 2D stills and simplistic PowerPoint-styled interpretations of the game's stages. Furthermore, the overwritten and unfunny story places the five main characters in a quest against the monkeys that coach the tutorial and provide bonus points during dance mode. The final insult is the story has no clear resolution even after finishing all available levels. Avoiding this tacked-on story and putting more time into the animation of the stages or the karaoke would have been preferable.

multiplayer

Multiplayer party mode allows for one-on-one dance-offs that are augmented by freeze and reverse-controller-direction attacks that cannot be countered. The beautiful stages, cute characters and great songs should keep friends enthralled, but this is another mode that could have used more. Friends could try karaoke, too, but even non-gamers will spot the faults in the gameplay. Fortunately, karaoke is optional in both multiplayer and single player modes.

overall

Electronic Arts and its Montreal studio are cranking on all cylinders to get unique and novel titles on Wii, but the games don't seem to get enough time in the oven. Like SSX Blur, Boogie is another audio-visual feast with flawed gameplay. Boogie also retails for $60 (instead of the typical $50 Wii game price point) to pay for the included mic, but this game needs more to justify that price, particularly when the extra ten bucks are in support of a completely broken piece of gameplay.

Boogie does have sleeper potential -- after playing it with my Mom she went out and got her own copy. In the ideal scenario, Montreal will be given the chance to create a fleshed-out sequel that has even more adorable characters, fixed karaoke, better stories and, last but not least, more gorgeous stages that are elevated to true visual explosions.

6.5/10