Boogie Superstar (Wii) Review
Boogie Superstar is the follow up to Boogie, the singing and dancing themed game released on the Wii about a year go to mixed reviews. I played Boogie, and I even reviewed it for this very site. I was not overly impressed with Boogie. I had high hopes for the karaoke/dancing themed music game, though due to a flawed dancing system and average karaoke, it failed to stand up to my own hype. A year later, does Boogie Superstar improve in areas where the original Boogie failed? Or is it another chart flopper? Read on to find out. To get straight to the point, Boogie Superstar is a technically superior game, though it rates about as entertaining as the first, if not slightly less entertaining. Whilst the dancing and singing mechanics have been improved, the game is strongly geared towards young girls; and with a poor selection of songs, loses its ability to entertain a wide range of different people.
This time around, Boogie has lost its unique, alien looking characters in favour of stock-standard and extremely basic human characters. Whilst you do have the option to edit these characters, the options are limited and no matter what you do, the characters still feel lifeless and boring. Another issue with Boogie Superstar is the sheer lack of game modes. In fact, the game really only has one proper mode. Regardless of whether you play alone or with friends, you’ll still be playing the same basic mode. There is no story based mode or anything like that. Rather, the main mode takes the form of an Idol type show where you choose three activities (e.g., dance, sing, sing with friend) and compete against other players, either CPU controlled or friends. At the end of each activity (or round), you are scored by a panel with the highest scoring player across the three rounds deemed the winner.
Whilst the lack of play modes is a real flaw with Boogie Superstar, it should be noted that the singing and dancing have been improved. Dancing has been made a whole lot simpler, and your moves are picked up well. Dancing involves moving the Wii-mote in specific ways in time with the beat. If you continue to dance well, you can perform combos to raise your score. It’s pretty basic, but the moves are usually detected well and it never gets too confusing. Singing seems to have improved quite a bit since Boogie too, as your notes seem to be picked up much better and you have an improved gauge of whether you are too high or too low thanks to an on screen arrow. It is still very possible to hum your way through a song for a good score, but nonetheless, singing has improved. Perhaps the biggest problem with Boogie Superstar is the direction EA have taken the game in.
Boogie was designed to appeal to a much broader range of people compared to Boogie Superstar. In fact, it is quite clear that Boogie Superstar is geared towards young females whose perfect idea of a musical artist is the likes of Britney Spears. The 40+ songs available in the game are all pop or dance songs, most of which is Top 40 kind of material. Whilst Boogie did have a fair share of pop songs, it has some older tracks and some modern ones that were not just bubblegum music. To make matters worse, the tracks are all covers rather than originals.
For some songs this is OK, due to accurate covers being used. However, for others, it is quite bad as the covers are pretty poor. Official tracks would have been a much better way to go, though the cost of doing so is quite a bit more. Many of the tracks are not available when you start the game, so you’ll need to play through to earn money to buy other songs. Playing with friends is a good way to accumulate money, so it shouldn’t take too long to open up all the songs anyway.
Boogie Superstar is a good looking game that makes use of a sort of cel-shaded approach with characters. There is plenty of colour and vibrancy, though the game never achieves anything above average in terms of graphical quality. It runs smoothly and character animations are decent, if nothing special. Sound is good, but the lack of master tracks for the karaoke hurts. The microphone works well, and once you learn to hold it in an appropriate position, it picks up your voice well. The song selection is bland and uninspired, though young girls will surely love the 40-odd pop songs on offer.
In the end, Boogie Superstar is a case of taking one step forward followed by another step back. Whilst the game is technically better, with a better dancing system and better karaoke, the lack of gameplay modes and poor song selection bring it on par with the first title. It lacks the character of the first game, but youngsters who love their pop music will surely have a blast singing and dancing away to their favourite songs. For this crowd, the game is recommended. For anybody else, there are far better music games on the market.
