Boogie (Wii)

BOOGIE can best be described as two games in one: a dancing game, where you must shake the Wii remote to the beat to rack up points, and a karaoke game, where you sing into a microphone and are judged on pitch and rhythm. You first choose from one of the five available "Boogs": Each character has its own personality, moves, and customized clothing, accessories, and hairstyles. In Dance mode, you must swing the Wii remote in a given direction, in time with the music, so that your Boog can perform cool moves and earn points. In Karaoke mode, you put the other Wii remotes down, plug the microphone (included) into one of the Wii's USB ports, and then sing along with songs by reading the onscreen lyrics -- you don't have to be very good to see encouraging words flashed on the screen.

Boogie is a good (but not great) music game for the Wii that has the right idea -- cute characters, a good song list, dancing, singing, and video editing -- but it doesn't equal the sum of its parts. The game would be a lot more fun if you had to dance, instead of making your character dance by whipping the controller around, plus the singing component is far too simplistic so you really don't have to try hard to pass these stages. The game isn't very challenging -- even for novice or younger players -- and after a short while it grows repetitive even though you can unlock bonus songs, locations, and items for your characters.