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52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Get up off the couch and cheer some more!, November 3, 2009
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This review is from: We Cheer 2 (Video Game)
Give me a Y! Give me a E! Give me an S! Do I love this game as much or even more than the first We Cheer game? Yes! It's everything I hoped it would be. You might remember from my review of the first We Cheer that I'm a 60 year old woman who didn't make the cheerleading finals in junior high and have never gotten over it. So this is a big time opportunity for a second chance. And this game is much cooler than junior high. First of all, the stages are glitzy and sparkly and you have a choice of lots of different ones like the Dolphin Aquarium, the Namco Arena and more. In junior high there were only smelly old gyms! The music is great with 30 new songs by top artists, all high energy and fun. When I was in junior high the cheerleaders had to sing. How lame is that?
I think the controls on this game are a little more responsive than they were on the first. With the first game it took me a couple weeks to pass the first cheer. On this one I passed an easy one the first time. Now that may be because I'm used to the way the game is played and because I play it obsessively. I like the Stunt Time bonus points addition to this game. Not to worry, you don't have to do the splits and cartwheels across your family room to score. The motion is detected only in your arm movements. (You might want to keep your drapes closed while flailing your arms wildly in time with the music and jumping up and down when you pass a song. It will only confirm to any neighbors who might look in what you're one fry short of a Happy Meal).
One of the things I really liked about this game is that right in the beginning, when you're going through all the training instructions, there is a part where you move your wiimotes with a calibration device that sets the calibration for the moves in the game with your TV. You can still go back later into the options menu and readjust them if need be. With the first game I didn't check the option menu and settings for the first couple of days and then found out that my screen response was just the slightest bit slow. Once I adjusted for it the moves were easier to hit. If you're new to the game, definitely go through the training sessions to get the feel of the way it all works.
The first game had lots of options for customization of your cheer squad, but this game has even more. There are over 40 different male and female cheerleaders to choose from and there are more things to customize. You can even do accessories like hair ribbons in a choice of colors. You have greater control over what you want your cheerleader to look like and also the other cheerleaders in your squad. This game has male as well as female cheerleaders which is great because the first game had a lot of male fans. It's fun to change the outfits and pompoms when you're taking a few minutes to rest up after playing for a while. There is a scoring thing in this game that's new, where you rack up points in the championship mode. You start as a Newbie and progress through the ranks. I was up to Amateur in my first session. You also see charts with high scores after each try. I liked that they didn't have the chatty fellow cheerleaders after each cheer in this game. Of course you can hit the A/B buttons in the first game to skip through that and can do that in this game to for any screens you want to skip. I like that feature, because the game moves quickly and you get to keep moving.
You can pick a different stage after each play if you want and the menu is a little different for this game than for the first. That menu looks kind of like a DDR menu. The game is still oozes with enthusiasm and high energy. The trace lines which you have the option to change to thinner lines are the same. It's a great way to exercise your arms and upper part of your body and the trainers encourage you in the beginning to follow along with full body dance moves. At first it's enough work just to follow the arm patterns, but once you learn those you can follow along. My arms feel like they're going to fall off after playing for a while and I worked up a good sweat. The thing I like best about the game is that it's fun and I seldom can play for just a short time. With the first game I've spent many nights playing until 2:00 in the morning, just because I had to pass one more cheer to get to the next level and I'm sure with the point system in this new game it'll be even more self competitive. Oh, you could invite up to 3 friends over for a Cheer Off where each player uses one wiimote or one friend in Cheer Battle where each player uses two wiimotes. My friends already think I'm nuts, a 60 year old cheerleader wannabe, so I won't even go there! Two thumbs up for We Cheer 2! This game will keep me busy for a long, long time.
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Something for everyone to cheer about!, November 5, 2009
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This review is from: We Cheer 2 (Video Game)
We Cheer is one of my favorite video games of all time, and We Cheer 2 makes a great thing even better. Cheers to Namco for making big improvements based on people's feedback.
Perhaps the biggest complaint about the first game was that it was a struggle just to pass a song! The two levels, normal and hard, were more like harder and hardest. Not with We Cheer 2. The new (default) beginner mode has the fewest lines and you will score points even if you're too slow or fast, making it very easy to fill up that megaphone-shaped life gauge. The rainbow bonus round is also back - you spell words instead of lighting up stars - but this time you'll go into bonus mode even if you don't get all the letters; you just get less time to wildly shake your wiimotes for extra points. Beginner level is ideal for kids and newbies; my 7-year-old daughter, who was easily frustrated at the first We Cheer, happily tore through We Cheer 2. Even beginners can move up through the ranks and unlock songs and LOTS of stuff.
Seasoned We Cheerleaders like me will probably want to start with intermediate level. As with the first game, the squad always does the same routine for any song on all levels, but intermediate adds more lines. Advanced (which you unlock for each song by passing it) has the same lines as intermediate, as far as I can tell, but the grading's more strict - you only score on "cool" which is a perfect move, and the card bonus is taken away, making it truly a challenge to fill up that gauge. Like others said, the controllers feel more responsive, and they fixed the no-quit bug so you can go back to the Wii Menu at any point in the game, even mid-song.
More improvements: the main game mode (Competitions) now has a choice of two games, Championships and Squad Challenge. Squad Challenge is much like the game mode from before where you have dialogue screens with cheerleaders between songs and challenge them on various stages - fine for kids or those who insist a video game must have a storyline. But if you're like me and want to skip all the chit-chat, go to Championships where you just play one song after another. Each song gives you more cheer points to buy clothes and accessories in the cheer shop, additional cheerleaders and their uniforms, and of course new songs and stages. (You can even see all the unlockables listed under "Rewards" on the options menu.)
Wait, there's MORE! You can now customize hair styles, faces and even names. The uniform logo is now your team name, so you can have your school name or fave sports team or whatever you call your squad on a big banner on the menu screen. Head for the cheer shop and spend your cheer points on clothing, hats, hair decorations and face paint. And you can save your favorite outfits, or take and save photos of them. Multiplayer still has cheer-off (2 to 4 players) and 2 party games, Hot Balloon (similar to Hot Potato) and Balloon Survival (where you try to hit all your moves to keep balloon from popping).
And even more: Workout mode is back, and you have a choice of 2 songs/routines in short or long versions. (Unfortunately the "calorie" counter is still bogus.) There's also a new "cheer camp" where you learn actual cheerleader moves; young aspiring cheerleaders should enjoy this part. And there are now records, and - well, I shouldn't spoil everything. Just buy it!! Young or old, if you like to get up and cheer, this is your game.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding update to one of the first and all-time best Wii rhythm games, December 18, 2009
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This review is from: We Cheer 2 (Video Game)
The original We Cheer was one of the first games for the Wii to really make full use of the Wii's motion sensor capabilities. It was a hugely popular title for Namco-Bandai and for good reason. It's a cheerleading simulation, a fun and challenging rhythm game, and a unique way to exercise, all rolled into one. I'm happy to say We Cheer 2 is a worthy sequel. It adds a fresh new soundtrack, new dance moves, an improved workout mode, and fixes some of the annoyances from the old game, such as the overuse of dialogue.
The primary audience for the game is quite obviously girls from ages 7-15, but it can certainly be enjoyed by people of all ages. The We Cheer world is a bright, colorful world with wide-eyed cartoon cheerleaders with big eyes and bubbly giggles. The music is licensed and recognizable music from such teen pop stars as Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Avril Lavigne. Even Fergie's "Glamorous" is the "Clean Version". You definitely won't find suggestive moves or skimpy outfits, it's all very family-friendly. Grown-ups probably won't have as much fun as the youngsters outfitting their characters with pom-poms, outfits, and every hair color of the rainbow, but kids will love it.
As for the gameplay itself, I found it very impressive. You hold the Wii remotes in your hands like pom poms, your on-screen character will dance in a cheerleading routine, and your job is to mimic her moves as closely as possible, with an on-screen arrow and animated "timing star" showing you the precise moves you need to make and the speed you make them in. If you follow her moves precisely, the screen says "Cool!" and you hear a jingling sound. If you miss, the screen will say things like "too fast" or "too slow" or even "needs more energy".
We Cheer 2 literally simulates an actual cheerleading routine. You'll clap your hands, dance from side to side, tilt and twist your body, shake your virtual pom-poms, and twirl and wave your hands. The choreography is actually pretty impressive; after playing the game over and over again (especially on expert mode), you can literally dance a full cheerleading routine that rivals the kinds you see at high schools and colleges.
As in the first version, the game publishers made a smart move NOT to use the Wii Nunchuk, instead giving you the option of using one or two Wii remotes. This greatly improves the accuracy of the controls at Beginner and Intermediate levels, which were spot-on. At the Expert Level, the motion tracking was not 100% accurate. Still, after making some adjustments to my movements, I was able to start clearing expert routines after a lot of practice. The same tips that applied to the first We Cheer apply to this one, namely:
* Put the sensor bar under the TV screen, not above it (make sure to configure this in the Wii options menu)
* If the controls aren't registering, play with the sensitivity controls (in the Wii options menu) and the calibration options (in the We Cheer menu)
* Like a real cheerleader, make exaggerated movements as you're doing the routine. When you make circles with your arms, they should be long and flowing. When you strike poses, they should be deliberate and your joints should be stretched out.
* Practice, practice, practice. You'll have your best success when you've memorized the routines and do them precisely in real-time with the on-screen characters, as opposed to trying to match the on-screen cues.
I think Namco missed an opportunity to improve the game by incorporating the MotionPlus, which could have helped alleviate some of the control issues. Still, with a little patience, you can get the controls to work, even on the Expert level.
One thing I really liked about the game was the mode called "Exercise Mode". In it, your on-screen character will take you through a Jane Fonda-like aerobic workout, shouting out various instructions to you. The options seem fairly limited (you can only choose between a 2-minute and a 4-minute workout), but over time you can unlock more. The storylines in exercise mode are pretty amusing; as in the first version, there's a tubby fellow (and in one case a grizzly bear) who approaches you and asks for help to lose weight. As you do the workout, you can see the pounds "poof" right off as you do the exercises correctly.
Overall, We Cheer 2 is a worthy successor to the original We Cheer, a lot of fun, and great exercise to boot. While most Wii exercise games focus on lower body, We Cheer provides a great low-impact upper body workout. Sometimes the best fitness titles are ones that aren't fitness titles at all, because you end up playing the game over and over again to try to beat the game, without realizing you're working out.
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