The Cheetah Girls: Passport to Stardom (E)

Good music game, but with fame and fashion themes.

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details

Publisher: Disney Interactive
Genre: Video Games - Music
Release Date: 08/19/2008
Platform(s): Nintendo DS
Online Enabled: No
ESRB Rating: E
Price: $29.99

Parents need to know

Parents need to know that this game is about the Disney-created girl band the Cheetah Girls. It's related to but doesn't reenact their third TV movie, The Cheetah Girls: One World. Fashion is the theme in one of the minigames, and players earn outfits to dress the band members and trade with others using the Nintendo local wireless connection. Girls can go online through this game because it supports Disney's D-Gamer, an online community where you can chat with friends, see the achievements you have unlocked in Disney games, and create an Avatar that can be seen by others as you chat. D-Gamer does allow parents to set the security levels for chatting: "Speed Chat" lets kids only communicate using a preset list of phrases and symbols; "Speed Chat Plus" introduces free-form typing but blocks inappropriate language; and "Open Chat" requires the exchange of Friend Codes outside of D-Gamer.

Families can talk about how Disney created this band by putting four girls into a movie together. How does the Disney machine go about creating a music phenomenon? How important is fashion? Does what you wear reflect who you are? Should you base your opinion of someone on what they wear?

Message
Violence
Sex
Language

Message

Social Behavior:

Themes of striving for fame and always looking fashionable pervade the game.

Consumerism:

This is part of the Disney-created Cheetah Girls brand, which started with the 2003 Cheetah Girls movie.

Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:

Educational Value:

Two of the minigames require you to memorize things to win.

Violence

Sex

Some of the costumes look a little sexy.

Language

Common Sense says

What's the story?

Reviewed by Jinny Gudmundsen

The Cheetah Girls are back, this time with their third Disney Channel movie The Cheetah Girls: One World and a Nintendo DS video game that extends the movie experience. In THE CHEETAH GIRLS: PASSPORT TO STARDOM, players help girl-band members Chanel (Adrienne Bailon), Dorinda (Sabrina Bryan), and Aqua (Kiely Williams) win music competitions and festivals as they travel around India, Spain, and New York City in hopes of achieving stardom. Your help takes the form of playing three minigames that make the Cheetah Girls sing, dance, and design costumes better. Two of the games are fun memory games and the other is a rhythm game. The latter resembles the gameplay that made Elite Beat Agents so popular. The screen shows numbered colored dots surrounded by shrinking circles. When the circle touches the outline of the dot, you must tap the dot to earn points.

Is it any good?

While the game emphasizes such shallow themes as fame and fashion, it also encourages tweens and teens to read the story. Two of the three games require girls to use their memory skills to play. Plus, girls can play together with either one game cartridge or two.

Fans of the Cheetah Girls will be thrilled that this video game features five songs from soundtrack of the new movie, plus five from the Cheetah Girls' first two movies. Plus, this game cartridge can also turn the DS into a music player. Girls can listen to the Cheetah Girls songs on their DS by selecting the song list option and plugging earphones into the closed DS.

How to play

Playability: Easy. Minigames can be played on 3 levels of difficulty.
Reading Required: Heavy
Graphics: Fun. You can see the Cheetah Girls dance while you play rhythm games.