Nintendo Okie

Howdy:

• Catchy Songs
• Jukebox Mode

See Ya’:

• Only takes an hour to beat
• Repetitive voice overs
• Confusing in game cues

I have been a fan of the Chipmunks for a long time.  I have fond memories of the cartoon and I have owned several different Chipmunk albums over the years.  When Alvin and the Chipmunks released to theaters in 2007, I didn’t quite know what to think.  Alvin, Simon and Theodore had never been real chipmunks had they?  I always thought they were just kids with buck teeth and high voices.  I was so confused by this turn of events that I never got around to watching the film.  I guess it did okay because now there is a sequel.  Whoops, I mean “squeakquel.”  Not only are the Chipmunks still, well, chipmunks, but the Chipettes are now small rodents as well.  So, thanks to Tony, it is up to me to tell the world what I think of this game.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel is a music rhythm game.  That should not be a surprise to anyone.  What is a surprise is that the game play and music really don’t sync up often.  Playing the game consists of you tapping/sliding/holding the stylus on the bottom touch screen to match commands from the top screen.  The commands fly into the center of the top screen from all eight directions as the Chipmunks or Chipettes dance their six different animations in the background.  There are three different command types that will fly into the screen, taps which are represented by stars in green bubbles, slides which come in as arrows in blue bubbles pointing in the direction you need to swipe, and holds displayed by arrows in long yellow bubbles.  You have to time your movements to happen as the respective bubble reaches the center of the screen.  The more you match your timing with the game, the more fans you earn.  Each song takes place in a different venue and to unlock more venues/songs, you have to earn a minimum number of fans in each city.  This “squeakquel” plays like a cross between Gitaroo Man for PS2 and Elite Beat Agents on DS.

During the songs, your attention will be changed to the bottom screen where you will have to play one of three mini games.  These include tapping on stars as they fill in, sliding a bubble around to avoid growing columns, and sliding a bubble around to collect or avoid objects that fly out of some blue typhoon looking thing.  The mini games seem a little out of place since they are only explained by the chipmunks yelling “Dodge” or “Tap,” but they provide a good chance to catch your breath during a song.

You will play eleven different songs in this game, five as the Chipmunks, five as the Chipettes and the finale sees both on stage together.  Some of the songs that you will play are “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Funky Town,” “We’re the Chipmunks” and “Macarena.”  For each song you can unlock bronze, silver and gold trophies depending on how well you do.  You can also unlock a medal for each song and I believe it has something to do with the attendance record in that venue.  During the songs you will hear the same few phrases over and over.  This get very annoying but thankfully you can turn the volume level for the voices off in the options.

Since this game is focused on kids, the difficulty level is fairly low.  An expert mode can be unlocked by defeating the game or by setting six attendance records during your performance.  I played through the game on normal without ever coming close to failing.  In fact, I didn’t fail a song until I got to the last song on expert.  I had to play it several times before defeating the game.

A nice thing about this game is the song plays if you hit the proper commands or not.  You don’t get plinks and plunks as if you missed a note in Guitar Hero.  Also, the song will play from start to finish no matter how many commands you miss.  So you will have a chance to make up for a bad string of notes.  This might not sound like a big deal but it is considerably hard to re-sync yourself once you miss one note.  In some of the later songs, you will have several commands near the center of the screen at the same time and it is hard to tell which one the game is expecting you to hit.  The proper bubble is highlighted by a white outline but with all the other visual noise on the screen it is just too hard to see.  Another problem with the input is that the motions you make do not register until you stop touching the screen.  So instead of just tapping the screen at the right time, you have to tap early and let off the screen when you would normally tap.  The game does this in order to allow you time to touch and swipe for the arrow commands but it just makes the controls feel laggy and removed from your inputs.

The back of the box boasts a multiplayer feature that you can play with up to three friends.  Oddly, I found no mention of multi-cart of single cart play on the game case.  When I booted up the multiplayer I quickly discovered why.  The multiplayer is just the same as the single player game except there are commands on screen to pass the DS to the next player.  I want to say that it is a good idea considering the group playing it might only have one DS, but honestly it is rather sloppy in execution.  The commands to pass the DS are easy to miss and could cause one player to get skipped or left out.  There isn’t even an option for single card, download play.  I suppose the developers didn’t have the time or resources to make a proper multiplayer.  I also found it odd the game only allows for two different game saves.  Typically games have three in my experiences.

My favorite feature of this game is the jukebox.  This allows you to listen to the songs you have unlocked.  The bottom screen has the list of songs and play controls while the top shows you lyrics and the repetitive dance animations.  What is really nice is that this mode allows the music to keep playing after you close the DS.  If you are anything like me, hearing the Chipmunks sing Macarena will bring a smile to your face.  Sadly, the Chipmunks do not do the Macarena dance.

I can’t say that I would recommend this game to anyone other than the diehard Chipmunk fan.   If you are looking for a music game to play on your DS, there are many options that will get you more game for your money.  The songs might be enjoyable but the entire game only takes two hours to complete.  Since the songs are the main reason to pick up the game, you might be better off searching for them on iTunes.

Final Score: 1/5 Terrible

Review copy of the game provided by Majesco.