A flawed, yet entertaining jam session.
Well... it's a notch below the series it imitates, but that doesn't mean it's junk. There are several characters (which you can customize with clothes and hair color) that you'll play as during your singing and dancing adventure. There are dozens of songs to choose from, and on the whole the selection is nice. Expect hilarious times with "Fergalicious" and "It's Raining Men". The microphone that's included is adequate, but I can't believe they didn't work on a mic wiimote attachment (it just makes sense!). So yeah the singing is self explanatory... and it works pretty well.
The dancing however, is not as enjoyable . It's simply not as satisfying as vocally embarassing yourself. Instead, it's a repetitive and uncompelling wave-your-wiimote element that I could've done without. It controls well enough, but your character just moves so awkwardly around the screen... it just feels dumb. EA tried try to keep things fresh by adding arcadey elements such as power-ups and combos, but I wanna bust out karate moves while doing "Kung Fu Fighting", not some generic shake or twist. They should have built the dancing around each song individually, and not just slap on some half baked waggle-fest. It's not BAD... it just doesnt feel right.
The game looks pretty nice. It's smooth and colorful (just the way it should be), and it's got some good & flashy effects. However... the mouth movements on the characters look blocky and primitive compared to the lip-syncing in KR. But the game looks good on the whole.
The sound is good, too. Although it baffles me that they didn't aquire the original songs... the covers are decent. I just don't understand why they picked suggestive songs like "Milkshake" and "Combo No. 5" just to have it censored. It bugs me... but still. These minor gripes will all be swept aside as soon as you butcher "U Can't Touch This."
Other things worth noting. You can save your performance, edit it, and save the video. Don't expect a vast and deep editing studio... but it's a VERY nice extra. To keep your tacky performance of "Don't Cha" for all of your friends to laugh at is a great bonus. It features good multiplayer support for all modes. But the fact that the game packs in a measly FIVE characters is a downer. You can also unlock stages, items, and songs as you progess.
Several hiccups like the dancing get in the way... but thanks to a solid presentation and a good song list, this a decent addition to the wii's "party" selection. Although it's a shallow game overall, it's undeniably fun. If you have friends to play it with... it just might be worth a purchase.
It's this or High School Musical, folks. That fact alone should aid your decision.
UPDATE: Gameplay score increased because of discovering "strike-a-pose" while using the nunchuck in dancing. It adds another method of getting a high score, and makes it deeper. Sound knocked down a point because some songs you know by heart and love have entire sections cut from them (Let's get it Started is unforgivable!) and will confuse you.