We Cheer – Review

g-wecheer200We Cheer

(Namco Bandai for Wii)
By Mike Delano

The list of things that the Wii remote hasn’t been used to emulate grows ever smaller. It’s been the obvious (a sword, a baseball bat), the not-so-obvious (cooking utensils, skiing poles) and the truly odd (No More Heroes, WarioWare: Smooth Moves). Add cheerleading pom-poms to the list. Given the Wii’s increasingly frustrating technical limitations, creative use of the Wii’s motion control is one of only a few things that can recommend a Wii game nowadays, and Namco Bandai has smartly focused on games that recognize this. We Cheer, with any justice, should inspire a flood of YouTube videos of people flailing their Wii remotes in frantic attempts to cheer in time with high-kicking anthems like “Whoomp! (There It Is)” and “I Want Candy.”

Attempts at a high score will all be in vain, though, since unlike games where reliance on the Wii’s motion detection is only part of the gameplay, here it’s all of it, and the detection is far too spotty. Even after much practice, prepare to fail even the easiest songs. Thankfully, since precision on the Wii is a hopeless endeavor, you don’t “fail out” of a song midway like in other music games, you get to finish your routine, regardless of your skill. Little touches like this give the impression that the game’s creators recognize that We Cheer lives solely on the spectacle of its adorably goofy premise, a premise so brilliant that it even lets you cheer the fat off of the bones of the morbidly obese in a hilarious minigame.
(www.namcobandai.com)