Six aspiring stars. Two different talents. No Ryan Seacrest. Boogie, the EA-published music game that takes a stab at cracking the DDR/SingStar market, is more American Idol than the American Idol edition of Karaoke Revolution. Its characters (known as Boogs) are just as showy as the contestants on Fox’s “reality” show, minus the arrogant attitude and angry British judge.

Boogie performers will sing and dance (separately) to climb the charts, and film a music video to plaster all over TV. The former two contain different gameplay components, the first of which mimics the vocal bar invented by Karaoke Revolution. You’ll sing along to hits like “ABC” and “Groove is in the Heart.” If those are a little old for your tastes, then the more recent Pussycat Dolls cover of “Dontcha” might be closer to your style.

Knowing that more than half of Boogie’s content revolves around dancing, I expected the game to come in a giant box with a DDR-style dance pad. That isn’t the case. In fact, the only thing inside its oversized box is a USB microphone made by Logitech. The dancing gameplay does not require an additional peripheral since all the moves were designed for the Dual-Shock 2.

As a dancer, a jigger, or freaky cat-man hopper, players will use the X, circle and square buttons to strut their stuff. Push the D-pad or left analog stick in either of the four common directions to add four animations to each of the dance buttons. This gives you a total of 12 base moves, but you’ll also be able to jump around each stage to snatch power-ups from odd-looking creatures.

Dancing isn’t aimless though. You will button-mash your way through the game, but there’s a routine that must be followed. Thankfully, it doesn’t involve scrolling icons. (This is where we pause for a moment and sing hallelujah.) Instead, you can choose which dance moves to use and when. The only limitation is that you hit the button – any button – as soon as the dance indicator reaches the top of the dance meter. The meter is color-coordinated, and the color you’re looking for is blue.

 
“Mambo No. 5”!? What one-hit-wonder graveyard did they pull that from?

Hit the top spot more than once without missing a step and you’ll begin a combo. Keep it up and your points will multiply. This isn’t hard to do since the dance meter goes through the same cycle every time, allowing players to quickly pick up the beat and press buttons in accordance with that beat every time. In just a few minutes you won’t even have to look at the screen to get a combo going. If nothing else, Boogie did accomplish something cool here. One of my biggest complaints with music games (even the good ones) has been that you can’t play along and watch the graphical demonstrations at the same time.

Boogie’s dance gameplay is certainly different. If a few other elements were in place, it could have been innovative. But what you get from this game-and-microphone package is a $20 peripheral and a disc that should have been a tech demo for a much bigger project. The preceding paragraphs cover every ounce of gameplay Boogie has to share. There’s a music video mode that allows players to tweak their favorite karaoke sequences. But it’s not actual gameplay – just a low-tech video editor.

Players will notice that, in addition to the individual locations for karaoke and dance modes (as well as a party mode that should be avoided), there is also a spot dedicated to the new video game staple: a story mode.

Kato, having noticed Bubba’s less-than-perky demeanor, asks what’s wrong.

Bubba: “Dang it Master Kato, I am just not happy. No one has come through to buy gas, and it’s so hot, and I am hungry. I’m just plain old unhappy.” (Actual quote.)

Kato listens to Bubba and offers some advice on being happy (something about cheering up). He then breaks into song.

If done as a comedy, this game could’ve been hilarious. But the characters are serious, and the text boxes can only be skipped by manually clicking through each one. The gameplay content is the same – five stages; two or three for dancing, the rest for singing. Your only goal is to top the high score, and the whole thing is over in less than 30 minutes.

In almost every stage, I could reach the high score before the song was half over. The song had to be finished regardless of the player’s success, and most songs are at least three minutes long. This gave me an idea: rather than finish the music track, which I did not want to do, I put down the controller and grabbed my PSP. To my surprise, my sneaky tactic worked. The game should have stepped in and said, “Hey, you can’t just walk away.” But this isn’t DDR or Guitar Hero. Only the required score needs to be reached. The rest is gravy, or in my case, an excuse to play LocoRoco.

Gameplay: 5.0
Boogie is a collection of stuff rather than an actual game. It’s as if there is supposed to be something more, because the dancing and karaoke elements don’t feel complete.

Graphics: 5.0
Cutesy characters and stylized music video effects are old news.

Sound: 1.0
The soundtrack itself isn’t too awful, but the recordings (they’re covers, not originals) are absolutely dreadful.

Difficulty: Easy
Mumble through karaoke tracks and button mash through the dancing portions. No challenge there, but if you’d like to see just how easy this game can get, try the picture/pose mode.

Concept: 6.0
Boogie is another great concept that’s overthrown by generic and underdeveloped gameplay.

Multiplayer: 4.0
Same as the single-player mode, only now you have to deal with your friends asking, “Can we play something else?”

Overall: 5.0
There’s a reason why we have the PlayStation Store. It’s for games like this that might contain some value but aren’t appropriate for a full $40 - $60 disc or bundle. Boogie is one of those games. It requires the Logitech microphone, which the average player does not have (hence the bundle). But as a $5 download, this game could have had a real market.