Reviewed: December 20, 2007
Reviewed by: Megan Dyer
Publisher
Electronic Arts
Developer
EA Montreal
Released: November 12, 2007
Genre: Music
Players: 1-2
5
4
3
5
4.5
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Editor's Note:
PS2 screenshots were not available at time of review so Wii screens were used.
Karaoke has long been a favorite pastime in its country of origin, Japan, and has gained some popularity in the Western world over the past several years. While most people probably associate karaoke with bars and a certain amount of alcohol consumption, karaoke certainly has a broader appeal and has crossed over into video game territory in the past with some success. Let's face it: there's something undeniably entertaining about belting out cheesy pop songs in the privacy of our own homes with nobody but our most trusted friends (who must promise to a] not laugh and b] sing like an idiot too) to hear us.
Konami has had the market for karaoke and dancing video games cornered for several years, and now EA's Boogie, a combination singing and dancing game, seeks to compete with both franchises in a single new title.
Boogie is not a simple karaoke game in the same way that Karaoke Revolution is, gauging a person's singing ability (i.e., how well you can keep on key, not how pleasant your voice sounds) and little else. While it does do this in its extremely forgiving karaoke mode, there is also a dance mode, a video editing mode (wherein you can create your own music videos using recordings of your karaoke performances and added effects) and a two-player dance mode where the opponents attempt to throw each other off beat. This all sounds like a lot of extra gameplay and should logically also mean extra fun, but Boogie is unfortunately riddled with countless little problems that make the game in its entirety a disappointment.
There is a story mode in Boogie that details the five selectable (and somewhat customizable) characters' rise to fame as pop stars. There are five levels to each character mode, which includes a mix of dancing and singing. The singing part is set up rather basically and is quite straightforward: the lyrics stream across the screen below a scale that indicates where the note for each particular lyric or syllable is located. You then sing into the mic, trying to hit the correct notes as you go.
If you don't hit the correct notes however, no worries: as long as you're making some sort of noise into the microphone, the game will give you points anyway, completely erasing the possibility of any sort of challenge whatsoever. At one point, I even dragged the mic across the leg of my jeans for the duration of a song, and the game gave me a pretty high overall score...so much for even putting minimal effort into this game to achieve some sort of semblance of fun.
The dancing presents more of a challenge, thankfully, and is in turn more fun than the karaoke part. Various buttons and combinations with the analog sticks make your character perform different dance moves. There are two meters on the right side of the screen: one meter displays the beat of the song that you should stay in line with and the other fills up throughout the song as you perform dance moves that are in time with the beat. When that meter fills up, then you can perform a special combo move by pressing the corresponding buttons indicated on the screen. Do these correctly, and the game will award you even more points.
The points you gain earn you tokens which can be spent to unlock songs, costume pieces and stages to perform on. This mode is by far the most fun, but even then it gets old rather fast. The gameplay is repetitive and after twenty minutes or so, you'll find yourself perusing your video game selection for something that's actually fun.
If you just love to hear your own voice however, you’re in luck. Boogie features a video maker mode that allows players to add various special effects to previous recordings of their karaoke and dance moves. The game will then play the whole performance back to you. This can be unintentionally hilarious, depending on how well or poorly you did, or if you decided to hold the mic up to a crying baby or howling dog throughout the whole song only to have the game praise you for your singing talents. Like the dancing in Boogie however, the video maker is only vaguely entertaining for a short period of time before it too leaves you bored and looking for something better to do.
The two-player mode consists of a dance off between you and a friend. This is simply the dance mode with two people who follow their own meters. The game allows you to collect items that randomly fall to the stage that cause you to freeze your opponent or throw them off beat. Like the single player dancing mode, this is mildly entertaining for a short period of time. But it too gets old quickly and left me wondering why the two-person mode is called “party mode.” I've been to some lame parties in my life, but if Boogie were involved, I'd go home early and get some chores done instead of stick around and play this frustratingly dull game.
Boogie has a few things going for it in the graphics department: it's bright and colorful. However, the characters to play with or create are designed in a very...upsetting way. I'm thinking of the character named Julius specifically-a large, lumpy green avatar that resembles Frankenstein's monster except with a vacant, broad smiling face. And then there's Lea, who looks like a Bratz doll (shivers), and Bubba...oh, Bubba. What are you? The game calls him a “gas station worker” but I know better. He's some strange cross between a sea anemone and a flat, vacant faced carrot man. I know some of these characters are supposed to be alien, but their designs are bizarre and at times disturbing.
The bright colors and flashy effects of Boogie don't vindicate how the game looks even on a technical level. When characters dance, it doesn't look smooth or natural. Characters more or less jerk around with wide, dumb looking grins on their faces. When they execute more complicated dance moves or strike poses, streams of stars, hearts, and so on shoot out from them like a aura--which would be fine if it didn't seems like just another “look at the purty stars!” distraction from the rest of the shoddy graphics.
Boogie's karaoke facilities are supposed to be one of its main selling points, obviously, yet it also happens to be where this game fails the most. The main problem is that while the rest of the game's music and sound effects play at whatever volume you happen to have your speakers set at, when you actually get to the karaoke the music volume goes way, way down. Even with the sound maxed out in the options, the songs have no power at all. While developers may have been thinking that this would make it easier for the singers to hear themselves, what it really does is make it difficult to find the correct note without the song to guide you (since you can barely hear the music over the sound of your own voice), as well as make you feel insecure at hearing yourself belt it out so clearly over an anemic, faint rendition of the music in the background.
There's no gusto behind the songs, actually making the karaoke part the least fun of all. Those of us without much in the way of singing ability (raises hand) definitely do not feel encouraged by having to hear ourselves so clearly through the speakers as we timidly sing “Dont'cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me ?” Those of you who can sing pretty well will still find this mode boring and extremely lacking simply because you can hardly hear the damn music.
Another problem with the music is the music itself. While it's clear that these familiar pop songs are all covers, there seems to be little effort made in the way of attempting to make them sound similar to the originals, something that Karaoke Revolution did extremely well. Listen to Boogie's rendition of Britney Spears' “Slave 4 U.” Is that a Michael Jackson impersonator I hear?
The music selection in Boogie is pretty one-dimensional too. Unless you are familiar with all of the latest throwaway pop songs and a few obnoxious disco songs, then you're out of luck. Unlike in Karaoke Revolution, there isn't a little something for everyone. The appeal of Boogie's music selection is mostly for a modern MTV crowd of middle-schoolers, making the karaoke mode even more disappointing for those of us who aren't fourteen. The only saving grace for me, was that at least it had Blondie's “One Way or Another.” I was excited to see “Kung Fu Fighting” was available to belt out as well...too bad these renditions completely sucked, though.
While there are some songs, costumes and stages to be unlocked in Boogie, the total song count comes to a pathetic 39. After playing through the game's five, monotonous character storylines, singing (or making some sort of noise into the microphone) to poorly renditioned pop songs that present absolutely no challenge, and making an avatar dance for a few vaguely entertaining moments, then what Boogie has to offer pretty much stops right there.
Even though it has a two-player mode, I wouldn't want to show this game to my friends and ask them to play it with me. There are simply better games to share. I suppose a younger audience might enjoy it a bit more with its extremely forgiving difficulty level and the bright, shiny colors, but anyone over the age of twelve will most likely just get bored and pop in a new game.
While Boogie seems like a good idea on the surface, it suffers from poorly executed gaming mechanics and too many bells and whistles without much substance. There are better karaoke games and better dancing games out there. For your money, you’ll be frustrated to have such a sub-par game with little going for it but a nice USB mic. You'll do better just to stay away from this one.