Why You Can Trust CNET Boogie Superstar review: Boogie Superstar
Karaoke meets Dancing in Boogie Superstar, but this game won't be our idol any time soon.
Boogie Superstar's an appealing looking package, combining a dancing game with karaoke — it comes with its own microphone, connected via an insanely long USB cable. The upside for that is that your tweenager probably won't pull the Wii crashing to the ground while in the middle of a dance routine.
Boogie Superstar
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Boogie Superstar's clearly been designed for and pitched at the 8-14 year old girlie market, from the huge range of hairstyles on offer, to the non-threatening boy characters, to the selection of highly boppy pop and urban tunes you can sing and dance along to.
Having said that, unless your pre-teen is familiar with the tunes on offer, or a very fast reader, they may struggle to keep up — our test subject didn't know many of the tunes and found the singing sections a touch frustrating as a result.
Boogie Superstar's basic premise isn't a million miles away from, say, Australian Idol — you pick a character (but it's a pity you can't use your Mii), and compete in a talent contest, dancing (basically by waggling the Wiimote), singing to onscreen lyrics, or both at once.
On the upside, Boogie Superstar's dancing mechanics are pretty easy to learn, with onscreen icons mirroring the type of action expected of you. It's also a pretty decent workout for parents trying to demonstrate to younger kids. The dance sections work about as well as any motion sensitive Wii stuff tends to, and it's at least an active gaming activity.
The Singstar-like Karaoke sections are awful, something that's not helped by the fact that though the songs are licensed, they're not originals. On the plus side, it means that the session singers who used to release those awful K-Tel covers albums in the 1980's are still in work. On the minus side, it means you'll have to hear the same bland covers being screeched endlessly, as, like Singstar, Boogie SuperStar is more concerned with pitch and volume than actual singing proficiency.