Product Description

All Star Cheer Squad is an aspirational game that captures the fun and action from the Cheer world. Players immerse themselves into the world of competitive cheerleading through creativity, customization, style and teamwork. Players create their own avatar, learn cheer/dance moves, compete against individual team members and ultimately compete against other squads

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2863 in Video Games
• Brand: THQ
• Model: 30155
• Published on: 2008-10
• Released on: 2008-10-27
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo Wii
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .52" h x 5.27" w x 7.50" l, .36 pounds

Features

• Use the Wii Fit Board to balance and perform stunts
• Use the Wii remote and nunchuck to perform dozens of real-world cheer/dance moves
• Compete in squad and one-on-one cheer-offs
• Customize the look of your team including body, facial features, hair and outfits
• Learn new moves and choreograph your own cheer routines to music

Amazon.com Product Description
In All Star Cheer Squad, players will follow a year in the life of a cheerleader as you learn new cheers, participate in practices and create your own routines in the hopes of making the squad and eventually becoming its captain. High-energy gameplay includes squad competitions and one-on-one cheer-offs, where players will use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to perform dozens of real-world cheer and dance moves.

Go ahead, Bring It!

Choose to be a girl, boy or neither. View larger.

The right look for your cheer. View larger.

Use the Wii-mote for upper body. View larger.

And Balance Board for the lower. View larger.

In order to ensure that All Star Cheer Squad has the latest cheer action and top routines, world-renowned cheerleading choreographer Tony G, best known for his work in the "Bring It On" movies, has signed on as chief consultant for the game. All Star Cheer Squad will also incorporate use of the Wii Balance Board to get the player's entire body involved in the game and add to the ultimate cheerleading experience. Players will be able to customize the look of their cheerleader and squad including body, facial features, hair and outfits.

Show the Squad What you Are Made Of
The backstory that plays out in All Star Cheer revolves around player's attempts to make the 'Fox Squad' cheer roster. Although a top squad, they have suffered a tough setback when one of their top captains has been sidelined by injury. The show must go on though. Players goal in singleplayer modes is first to make the squad, later progressing up its ranks and finally putting what you've learned to good use as a choreographer.

Key Game Features:

• 1-4 player support.
• Use the Wii remote and nun-chuck to perform dozens of real-world cheer/dance moves.
• Full body cheer experience using the Wii Balance Board (optional).
• Compete and cooperate in squad and one-on-one cheer-offs.
• Customize the look of your team including facial features, hair, style & color, make-up and outfits.
• Learn new moves and choreograph your own cheer routines to music.
• Grow your all-star squad to be the best and lead them to the championship as Cheer Captain.

Varied Gameplay
Gameplay within All Star Cheer Squad consists of players mimicking the stream of on-screen prompts, representing individual moves within a cheer routine, and accumulating points according to their accuracy. Action is registered through the use of various controllers. Ideally the game simulates a the range of body motion--both upper and lower--that a cheerleader utilizes. With this in mind, to take advantage of the game's full potential players should use both the combination of a Wii Remote with attached Nunchuck controller for upper body movement, and a Wii Balance Board for lower body movement. But this configuration is not mandatory for play. A Wii Remote with Nunchuck will suffice. Play options consist of:

Singleplayer - Singleplayer action in All Star Cheer Squad comes in two varieties: Quick play and Career Mode. Career Mode on the other hand contains the lion's share of the singleplayer experience as well as the storyline of the game. As players begin this mode they choose the gender and basic customization options of their character like initial attire, facial features, etc. From there they are introduced to the current members of Fox Squad. Considered as an unproven rookie the players must try out and make the squad to gain respect and a spot on the team. If successful more advanced routines and moves as well as unique custom items will be unlocked, which will earn you credibility and provide the opportunity to move up in the hierarchy of the squad, eventually all the way to captain. Quickplay is a standard tutorial mode where players can practice basic and not so basic moves that will come in handy regardless of the player's experience and comfort level with the Wii Remote, Nunchuck and the Wii Balance Board.

Multiplayer - All Star Cheer Squad supports 2-4 players either cooperative or competitive multiplayer. Team up and work together as a unit and the goal is to get the highest overall routine score as a squad by following the on-screen prompts as you face down a bevy of AI supplied competition. As squads progress through the mode, moves routines and their synchronization with music become more and more difficult, complex and frantic. Players who instead choose to go the route of competitive multiplayer face off against friends in a versus mode where not only do they need to follow the in-game prompts, to hope to win in a tight battle they must shoot for perfect execution of moves. String together three perfect moves and your team receives a 'call out." These can be used to add points to your score, trip up the opposing cheer line when their turn comes, protect your own line in this case. Whichever team has the highest score at the end of the game wins.

Any way you choose to play it All Star Cheer Squad is an aspirational game that captures the fun and action of the real life Cheer world. Immerse yourself in the creativity, customization, style and teamwork All Star Cheer Squad. And don't forget to Bring it on!

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Customer Reviews

So far this game is just plain tedious
I want to start by saying that I've only played this game for a few hours, but so far I'm not impressed. I bought the game because I am having so much fun with the other cheer game, We Cheer and thought this might be even better since it uses the balance board. So far I'm disappointed.

The biggest annoyance so far is that the screens take so long to load from one practice or routine to another. After waiting 20 to 25 seconds for the first part to load you get three screens acknowledging that you're using a balance board, warning you not to jump on it and some other warning and then you have to step off while it calibrates and then back on and wait again. This takes another 40 to 45 seconds. And you have to do this between each practice, tryout or routine screen. It doesn't remember the balance board like the Wii Fit does where you only need to do it one time.

If during a practice or routine you want to go back and do it over, you have to go through listening to the cheerleaders explanations and go through all the screens, clicking the A button instead of just going to the routine or practice that you want to do over. There doesn't seem to be any way to click through the first part. So you end up standing around waiting much more than actually moving and playing the game.

The main reason I bought this game was for exercise, but there is a lot less moving around than with the other We Cheer game. Most of the time you're just moving the Wiimote and nunchuck in patterns which don't always register correctly. Sometimes wrong moves register as correct and sometimes vice verse. The use of the balance board doesn't make much sense so far because since you can't jump on it or hop from one foot to the other you're basically putting pressure on one foot or the other, not really doing the moves on the screen. And having to wait for the balance board to calibrate every 3 or 4 minutes when you go to another routine makes it hardly worth the time waiting for that to register.

One other problem is that if you were to actually mimic the arm movements the cord on the nunchuck isn't long enough to put your arms out to the sides unless you're a very small person, so you would need a wireless nunchuck. A better solution would have been to use 2 Wiimotes like the We Cheer game. So far, there is much less movement in this game.

The music is ok, but a lot of the same thing. The graphics are ok, you can see them in the description here. You can unlock some different outfits and routines. It follows a year in the life of a cheerleader and you can make up your own routines at some point in the game. I'm going to spend some more time and give the game a chance but I have to tell you that in the first hours I've felt mostly annoyance at the slow loading times and impatience, waiting for the game to get better. So far it isn't fun and finding the motivation to go back to it feels like a chore.

I hope to see some other reviews here, telling me I'm doing something wrong and there's a way to skip through all the delays. I really wanted to like this game.

You Won't Be Glad You Bought This Game
Back story: I did try-outs and got to 'week three' with a corded-nunchuk, then deleted my game, bought a cordLESS nunchuk and started all over again. My scores all went up about 25%, not to mention the fun of it increased infinately, as face-whipping myself over and over, previously, with the corded nunchuk wasn't fun.

Visually, this is a robotic, uninspired, ugly-animated game when you get right down to it.

But in ASCS's defence, it has worked very hard on reproducing detailed, authentic, and varied cheerleading motions to a game. It fails to impress immediately because it hides what little is good about the game; for instance: that these cheerleaders do dance later on, and are capable of more than just looking like robotic clones directing traffic on an airstrip.

For the average, fun-seeking player (as the term 'game' implies to us as consumers) it's too little too little too late; which is a very valid experience for most buyers of the game, unfortunately. ASCS is a workhorse, and while that is not downgraded in my review at all, `gaming' implies fun and little frustration, and ASCS excels at frustrating in the beginning. It's got buried treasure but you have to persevere for it and they make it as annoying as possible at the start, so it`s no wonder people are irked. But after that, it really softens up and you totally get into winning competitions. But I do understand completely why it frustrated people to the max and why it's reviews were bad, and I had the exact same experience until I got more into the game. Games should sell themselves instantly out of the box, and this is not the case with ASCS.

Bottomline: Nice try, but it's an inevitable dust-collector.

Update: It's been a year since I reviewed this game. I haven't played it once since 2008. I realize the reason I don't play is the weird, complex set of button combos they expect you to remember while 'cheering' and the totally odd robotic, stick-like cheerleaders, horrible music, and songs with zero danceability. That sounds harsh but it's the truth. I recently purchased "We Cheer 2" and it's an incredibly enjoyable game. Go buy that one instead. Music rocks, cheerleaders look like live humans that are totally customizable AND "We Cheer 2" is 100% instanlty-immersible and a great, fun work out for girls, boys, women, and men of any age at all that keeps you striving to beat the next song and the next but isn't too hard for the average jane/joe to master.

Not Impressed...selling it back
Ok, here is the thing. I am in college and love my wii, so when I saw an all star game I was so excited. I was an all star cheerleader, and I thought "how cool. What a good way to stay in shape!" However I am very very disapointed. I guess if you were a little kid or had really short arms it would be great. The game requires you to connect the numchuck to the remote to do the motions, however the cord connecting the two is so short, you can't even do the motions for real. I mean I was disapointed that I couldn't even make a high v.
Overall, great for kids who want to learn more about cheerleading or practice motions for tryouts for a team, but just not a good game for adults who want it to stay in shape.