The Game:
Further proving that EA no longer understands the meaning of the word "original," Boogie for the Wii is an attempt to simultaneously rip off both Dance Dance Revolution and Karaoke Revolution/Singstar, and the results are disastrous.

The idea behind Boogie is that you're an up and coming singer/dancer, and in American Idol fashion, you're going to compete to get to the top. To do that, you're going to dance and sing while facing off against other...things...that want to do the same. I say "things" because there are only two human characters in the game. All the others look like they were grown in a petri dish, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. What's attractive about seeing a gelatinous mass shake its booty on the dance floor? This is just the beginning of the pain Boogie inflicts upon you.

You begin the game by choosing your character. You get the option to customize said character in a shockingly limited number of ways, and then get sent to the grating tutorial, where you'll learn the basics of the game. In a nutshell, you move the Wii remote to a beat. Yeah, that's about it. Whether you move the remote up, down, sideways, or around, it makes the character shimmy and shake, and not much more. There's a "beat meter" which is meant to help you stay on the beat, but it's mostly distracting. Much more helpful is that the speaker in the remote ticks off the beat like a metronome. If you "dance" well enough, you can charge up your Beat Power and hold down the B button, which makes arrows pop up that you have to follow. Doing this correctly will unleash super powerful dance combos.

At various times little hairy dudes will appear, carrying tokens or power-ups or attacks you can use against opponents. You can either use the nunchuck to move towards them, or the D-pad on the remote. At times, you also get the option to sing, which is why the game comes with a microphone. Well, this is about as awkward as you might expect. You're holding the remote in one hand, shaking it back and forth like some kind of nervous twitch, and in the other hand you're trying to sing along with the correct lyrics and melody. Once the travesty is over, you're still not done. No, you have to rewatch what you just did and edit it to make a "music video." To give you an idea of how little depth there is to the game, the "editing" consists of four very similar camera angles, and then the ability to overlay hearts onto it, or something equally insipid. And then, once you've done that, you have to watch the video over again with the edits. Somebody please save me.

Each character has five story levels. These make no sense. They're just completely nonsensical. The cutscenes have no voice acting, and the whole thing makes my head hurt. The only thing you get for playing the story modes are a few extra customization options and a few extra unlocked songs (including what is easily the best song in the game, "One Way Or Another" by Blondie). There's also a multiplayer mode, in case you want your friends to lose all respect for you. These are virtually the same, except you can get tokens that make things more difficult for the other player.

Perhaps the dumbest thing about this game is how obscenely easy it is. As I mentioned, the game doesn't care which way you wave the remote, so just waving your hand back and forth for three minutes will get you the gold. The same goes for the karaoke. No longer do you have to worry about things like singing on key or even in the correct pitch, as almost any noise will register as correct. I suppose you could have some fun burping or farting into the microphone, and even if you did that, the game would still say you're amazing and on the way to the top. What's the point of it all? Even the frickin' Happy Feet game required you move the remote in a specific direction at a specific time. This game just insults my intelligence.

The Graphics:
If there's one thing Boogie does right, it's the graphics. The whole thing is done in an exaggerated cartoon style, and it actually looks pretty neat. That being said, I still think the character designs of the more bizarre characters will probably scare small children, but hey, I really have nothing against terrifying minors.

The Audio:
The whole game is filled with really awful dance music, but some of the songs listed for karaoke aren't so bad, including the aforementioned Blondie song, as well as tracks from Chic, The Jackson 5, and others. The problem is none of the songs are originals, and many are even censored. Can you do anything right, EA?

The Conclusion:
Are you still reading this? Let Boogie rot in discount bins across the nation. It's not worth a first look, let alone a second. Skip It.