As squad captain, you call all the shots as you trot the globe to rally an audience with your cheer routine and attempt to become the tournament champions. We Cheer will put your rhythm to the test and challenge your coordination as you try to pull off strings of move combos from memory.

Note that We Cheer is not a simulator or an authentic cheerleading experience in any manner. This music-based rhythm game has you using your Wii remotes as imaginary pom-poms in order to beat rival cheerleaders, assimilate them into your squad, and grab their gear.

Before firing up the game, I had fears of strapping Wii remotes to each of my ankles and having to perform the splits! Fortunately for my groin, only a Wii remote in each hand is needed. To signal the start of a cheer routine, one of thirty licensed songs from a mostly impressive set list will begin to play. Animated trace lines composed of hearts and stars grace the screen to help you anticipate upcoming moves in the choreographed routine. Before you realize it, the full motion based controls will have you spinning, twirling, twisting, jumping, kicking, dancing, and executing a few other awkward moves you may not have known that you could even perform!

The game is full of personality and features very likeable character design with a cartoony flavor. Big hair and even bigger eyes give life to the We Cheerleaders. Such personalities, coupled with the bright vibrant rainbow colors and flashy light show, will certainly attract a younger female audience.

Your snotty rivals taunt you before each stage, but each fallen challenger joins your team upon defeat, expanding the initial squad of five girls. Furthermore, you score their possessions and skills, such as uniforms, sneakers, pom-poms, cheering routines, and more. With these added items, you can fully customize each member even further by altering traits such as skin color and hairstyle, to name a few. You can even stitch your team name, or other creative slogan, on their uniforms.

This is all good except that the game was awarded an E10+ rating by the ESRB for ‘Mild Lyrics’ that contain many a word that I wouldn’t want to hear my li’l girl spouting out in any cheer. Furthermore, many of the costumes are a bit racy, and the hip gyrations in some of the choreographed dance routines contradict the target market. And then there is the level of difficulty…

We Cheer will remind you of how awkward and lacking of grace you were while growing up. Visually, there is a great deal happening on the screen. While this helps make the game appear very dynamic, all those flowers and frill can also be a diversion. Being distracted while trying to play an overly difficult game makes it all that much more impossible. A design problem with the game is that the player is not given enough time to register the trace lines and react in the given time frame. This play mechanic dooms the player from the start concerning playing on the fly, turning We Cheer into a game of memorization more than a game of reaction. Practice and repetition are the only ways to excel past the unreasonable learning curve. Be prepared to fail and fail again in most of the dance routines. Even completing a routine may not be enough; if your megaphone gauge is not completely filled up at the end of a tune, it is back to the beginning for one more try. The lack of an ability to pause the game or even restart a routine when you are failing further frustrates the player. Who would have thought that We Cheer would be more brutally difficult than playing Halo 3 on its “Legendary” skill setting?

There are times when the motion detection reacts poorly, but as with many Wii games, it is often a result of the hardware and not necessarily the We Cheer software itself. Whatever the cause of the unresponsive controls, it still negatively affects the game.

Despite the technical flaws and your inevitable certain failure to complete many routines successfully, there is just something intrinsically fun about flailing your arms around while leaping around your living room to the sugar-coated chaos. I can say that, despite its frustrations, We Cheer is an embarrassing delight.

We Cheer shines as an exercise game. Not since Dance Dance Revolution has a game pumped blood in such volumes and moved players off the couch. In workout mode, the game leaves you panting for breath while calculating how many calories you burned. Imagine if working out in the real world had a reward system that netted you a new article of clothing each time you exercised. We’d all be fit and lookin’ good!

Aside from the single player experience, up to four participants can compete in a cheer-off, against one another or cooperatively as a team.

The cute female characters and cheerleading theme will certainly scare many players away from this game. In some ways, this is a real shame. While We Cheer is certainly no Guitar Hero, it would be deemed enjoyable to many who appreciate similar games in the music genre.

One word of advice: in order to uphold your macho reputation, be sure to close the shades on your windows before playing We Cheer or risk your neighbors see you acting and giggling like a teenage girl!

We Cheer Song List

Bodyrock – Moby
Born For This – Paramore
Calabria 2008 – Enur feat. Natasja
C’mon N’ Ride It (The Train) – Quad City DJ’s
Come Clean – Hilary Duff
Eye Of The Tiger (Sunset Crew Radio Mix) – Crew 7
Footloose – Kenny Loggins
Groovy Train – The Farm
Godspeed – BT
Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) – C+C Music Factory
I Say Hey – Kinky
I Want Candy – Bow Wow Wow
I’d Do Anything – Simple Plan
If You’re Gonna Jump (Paul Oakenfold Remix) – Natasha Bedingfield
In This Diary – The Ataris
It Takes Two – Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock
Jump – Simple Plan
On Top Of The World – Boys Like Girls
Our Time Now – Plain White T’s
Perfect Day – Hoku
Push It To The Limit – Corbin Bleu
Stamp Your Feet – Donna Summer
Star – Erasure
That’s The Way (I Like It) – KC & The Sunshine Band
The Great Escape – Boys Like Girls
The Huddle Formation – The Go! Team
The Power Is On – The Go! Team
Unbelievable – EMF
Walking On Sunshine – Aly & AJ
Whoomp! (There It Is) – Tag Team