Boogie is a game filled with a lot of coulds. It COULD have been exciting and new. It COULD have been something truly pushing what the Wii can do. It COULD have been a game everyone would love. Sadly, what we ended up with in the final product is a game that most people will enjoy only in large groups, and for no more than half an hour at a time.
Billed a dance/karaoke title, EA tried to cram a lot of stuff into Boogie. The problem? The over saturation of the various features left each respective feature feeling rather shallow compared to similar titles.
When playing Boogie, you’ll either be singing, dancing, or attempting to do both without looking like a complete fool. (It’s impossible, go ahead and try.) Sadly, the song selection is rather sketchy, and too all-over the radar for most people to enjoy a majority of the tunes. Nothing kills a party faster than transitioning from Kung Fu Fighting and Karma Chameleon to Fergie and Kelis.
So the song list isn’t very great, but how does the karaoke play? It depends on how much you’re willing to overlook what’s broken. A few people have slammed it for not requiring you to sing the right words for it to pass; that’s nothing new in karaoke video games. What is new, however, is that Boogie seems to pick up on any sound you make, and even if you barely get any of the notes "correct" you’ll still get a fairly decent score on the song. The sad part? Sometimes random noises turn out BETTER than your singing. (At least they did in my case…)
If you’re willing to just have fun and sing, however, that doesn’t matter too much. What’s impossible to ignore is the "dancing." Before the game was released, people just assumed the dancing would involve the Wii remote and/or nunchuck, and somehow register what you’re doing and transfer some of that to the screen. But that sadly wasn’t to be.
Instead, we’re stuck with dancing which is more akin to Harry Potter cosplayers pretending to cast expelliarmus. You just sort of wave the remote around in four directions, occasionally press the A or B buttons to change the dance moves, and that’s it. Most of the time, you don’t even need to match the beat in the song; that’s a good thing, since the beat meter is usually off a bit.
With these complaints, you might assume Boogie is a completely broken game. If you play alone, that’s certainly the case. There is absolutely no reason anyone in their right mind should buy Boogie to play alone. If you have friends to play with, children you want to share a game with, or even have occasional karaoke nights like some people I know, Boogie might still be worth a look.
Where the game fails incredibly playing alone, it succeeds playing with friends. It’s a blast making fun of your pal for looking like an idiot and singing a bad pop song. (It’s also embarrassing when the tables are turned, so if you aren’t willing to look stupid, you may want to avoid playing at all costs.)
Despite Boogie’s shortcomings, EA does deserve credit for trying something new and trying to push the Wii. (The graphics in Boogie are fantastic.) With a few smaller changes – a better karaoke response, and maybe changing the way the dancing works to button-pressed commands a la a normal music rhythm game rather than "who can wave the remote around best" – the next Boogie can be a huge hit. Don’t forget, this is EA, so it’s not too forward to expect at least one more iteration of Boogie before they give up on it. Hopefully they do it right.
