DS Review: "Hannah Montana [Music Jam]

My very first review here is dedicated to my 9-year-old sister, who's easily THE biggest Hannah Montana fan on the planet. We recently came into acquisition of the game by courtesy of one of our cousins. After a short not even 10 minutes' time, she dropped my last DS stylus down the couch. Smooth...

A couple of weeks passed before I found something that makes a suitable replacement (still waiting on a real one though), and I realized we still had this game in our possession. So I figured, what the heck, while we're still borrowing it, I'm gonna go ahead and try it out. I'd tried to win the game off Ebay for my sister (and subsequently, failed) for Christmas last year and remembered seeing the game synopsis, some screenshots and a few gameplay videos. I admit to listening to a little Hannah Montana on the side, so it seemed like an intriguing enough concept for a game to me!

Oh dear me. Where on EARTH do I start with this one? I do realize that the age range intended for this game is really primarily for the tween crowd, but honestly folks - there's a lot that could be improved upon in this game. (Maybe they've done that with the Wii "Hannah Montana" games.)

Anyway, let's start at the beginning here with the packaging. The cover on the box was no doubt designed by Disney to send little girls squealing in the middle of the store upon seeing Hannah's face smiling back at them, with the unspoken promise of letting them live out the life of a pop star vicariously by playing this game. After all, what little girl in this day and age doesn't have dreams of growing up to be a pop star?

Flip the box over, and you'll be greeted by another photo of Hannah, 3 screenshots of gameplay, and the following text:

IT'S A SUPER STAR SHOWDOWN!
* Play as Hannah to win the Music Jam Online video competition
* Use the stylus to play guitar, bass and drums
* Play wirelessly with up to 3 friends to make your own band

What the box neglects to tell you is that 90% of the actual "gameplay" will consist of endless dialogue scenes which, unless you're a fan of games such as Phoenix Wright, you're probably going to tire of very quickly.

I pop the game in, and after sitting through 3 or 4 different logo screens, I literally cringe upon hearing the theme song. I suddenly begin having flashbacks back to webpages from 1994, before the days of MP3s, when the only songs you heard online were terrible MIDI renditions that you sometimes couldn't even distinguish what they were supposed to be. This game was made by Disney, right? Well then, they should also have the rights to the real versions of the songs, shouldn't they? And don't tell me that they can't fit the song files onto the cartridge - Elite Beat Agents is a perfect example of real music being used on DS. More games should adopt that.

Once I got past that part, my next thought went to the picture on the top screen above the main menu. Wow! Disney really outdid themselves, I thought to myself. Look how amazing the graphics are!

No. No, no. Even though they proved by having it there that they could have graphics this good, they don't. Which is a shame, because that would have been amazing. Granted, it probably would've taken them so many years to make, the Hannah craze would certainly be long over by then, and new Disney stars like Selena Gomez would be taking over the world, but I digress. I was just a little disappointed by getting my hopes up like that for nothing. Instead, we get graphics that look like this:

Disappointing, huh? But one point that I was very impressed by is all the excruciating detail they put into giving Miley's house the EXACT same layout as on the TV show. (I'm sure I'm not doing my reputation any favors here by admitting I watch it.) Anyway, I more or less noticed that they did this everywhere possible in Miley's world in this game. I give the makers MAJOR props for going through all that trouble. I guess they know full well that young girls are often so obsessed with whoever their current TV/movie obsession that they know every last detail backwards and forwards, that they'll balk and fuss over any tiny little inaccuracy. (If anyone knows this from firsthand experience, it's definitely me. Just...not with Hannah Montana.)

Something else that struck me right off the bat was the quality of the dialogue. Yes, I know, I complained about how much of it there is just earlier in this same review, but quality DOES triumph over quantity in this case. I think they may have even gotten the original screenwriters from the TV series to write the dialogue for this. I can almost hear all the characters saying each line inside my mind as I read it, and that, for me, has always been a major scoring point in anything based off some type of fandom; be it a band, a movie, a TV show, random celebrities... I've spent the better part of my life writing, reading, and reviewing fan fiction stories. I can usually tell within the first few exchanges of dialogue whether or not the writing is up to par. So, for this part, I'll definitely be giving a big fat 10! Now, if only the rest of this game were that good...

The navigation on this game isn't possible, but it definitely takes a little bit of time to learn the ropes. To move between rooms - or even parts of larger rooms - there's a sequence of stars on the floor of each area. By centering Miley/Hannah over one of them, you'll be able to enter that location. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. It often took me a few tries to get her centered just right to where the star would actually work. And of course, the times I didn't want them to, I'd barely touch a star while trying to walk around it, and end up sent to the location and have to go back through. For as many of these portals as there are in the game that you'll encounter, you'll find that this grows aggravating very quickly. It would also help a little bit, especially in larger areas like the business center, if there were an ability to run.

Another thing that will grow old really quickly is the same three or four songs looping over and over again repetitively throughout the entire game. The girl has had more hits than that, why couldn't they have included more of them in the game too? I don't know. But it's a surefire way to make even the biggest Hannah fan start rolling her eyes at the first few notes of any of these songs.

One more gripe before I move on, I swear. It really irks me that there is NO pause feature whatsoever in this whole game. What are you supposed to do if the phone rings in the middle of a photo shoot? Or you have to go to the bathroom? Or heck, both at the same time, and you CAN'T PAUSE THIS GAME??? AHHHHHHH!!! (Okay. I'm better now. I swear.)

So, where were we before that patented genuine LLP freak-out? Ah, yes. Photo shoots. The only thing I hate more in this game than the repetitiveness of the music. You have to match the poses and colored backgrounds with the backdrop that cruises along behind Hannah...but this becomes mind-numbingly boring after about 30 seconds. When I finished the first photo shoot in the game, I was practically begging for mercy because it felt as though the thing were never going to end. And then, just to have to do another one a minute later? I nearly wept. The photo sessions go on for SO long, the song isn't even long enough to cover the whole thing, and it starts over! "Who Says" is one of my favorite Hannah songs in real life, but after playing those levels, believe me, I think it'll be a while before I want to hear it again.

Tip: Make sure to invest in a pair of headphones before playing this game. The people around you will thank you for it.

This brings me to the part of the game where the instruments become involved. AKA, the entire reason I even picked the game up in the first place. You start out with the rhythm guitar and strum across the strings as you press the arrow keys in the corresponding sequence with what appears onscreen. It's no Guitar Hero, but it's got a certain charm to it. If they had made a video game based entirely just off of this mini-game alone when I was a pre-teen, it probably would've been my favorite game in the world.

Tip: If you're right handed, don't think you'll be cool for going into settings and switching the controls to left handed. I fell into the pitfall straight off the bat because I thought ha ha, I'll set it left handed and be like Paul McCartney. Idiot! All it will do is make it more difficult for yourself because of the direction you have to strum the strings in.

After mastering all three skill levels of rhythm guitar, you'll move on to bass. No, not the kind of bass that will make you feel like a big pimpin' black man when you play it, just... y'know, a regular old bass. (You can still wear your pimp hat while you play the level. I promise I won't tell.) Now, I made the mistake of not reading the instructions for how to play this before jumping in headfirst; figuring if I had such an easy time with the rhythm guitar, then bass should be even easier! But I was making the mistake of trying to strum across all of the strings at once. Yeah...don't do that. Only play the string that you're supposed to at a time here, just like playing a real bass. Before coming to this realization though, when I still thought you were supposed to be strumming all the way across, I found myself thinking dang, if the kids that play this ever try and pick up a real bass and play it like this, they're going to be awfully disappointed. It was around the time that I thought of that that I also thought to try playing just one string at a time, and a funny thing happened: my score suddenly started to skyrocket. Gee, I wonder why...

The lead guitar concept is the same of that as the bass, except with 2 more strings. Not real difficult. Pity that most of the notes from this "electric guitar" sound an awful lot like the sour notes the tiny pocket piano I used to have as a toddler made as the batteries would begin to go dead in it. But I digress... There's no substitute for the real thing here, folks. None at all. But for the preteen who keeps begging her parents for an electric guitar for her birthday/Christmas/Hanukkah/whenever so she can be a rock star... Maybe this will suffice. Maybe. (Probably not though.) I guess you could equate it to being one of those little girls who also wants a pony, and gets handed a horse simulator video game instead. Speaking of which, I've seen an AWFUL lot of those made for DS... Does this further go to prove my point that DS is aimed more for a female demographic, and PSP for the male demographic? Oh, I don't know.

I was incredibly let down by the drumming mini-game. It's difficult to master the timing that they want - even if you get it at the right time, often times the beats you're hitting don't match up with those in the song. Not to mention, you don't get little dots or light up spots or anything that appear on each drum and cymbal to tell you when to hit what, oh no. You get 4 flying pieces of a circle that come together on each one. Regardless of if I hit it just before the pieces meet or if I hit exactly when they do, it doesn't seem to matter, they still show up as wrong. But even if they were registering as being correct? I've always had this infantile fantasy of being a drummer. Barely tapping different points on a screen doesn't fulfill the desire to hold a stick in each hand and beat on things as hard as I can. It's NOTHING like drumming at all!

There's one more musical mini-game that I didn't see mentioned on any review sites about this game, and that's the voice coach game. Good in theory; not so good in execution. You're presented with a screen that looks much like a very primitive mixing board, and colored bubbles light up and drop, representing each note you need to sing. (If you go about it right, humming will suffice.) If you hit the right note, the paddle at the bottom of the screen will slide over to beneath the falling bubble and catch it. Be careful though - unless you get it just right...the pitch, the volume, length of holding the note, holding the microphone just far enough away from your mouth...it will register as incorrect and the paddle won't move to the right spot. It took me several tries to get a 100% on this. As long as you're not tone deaf, you should be able to get a pretty high score, even if imperfect, fairly easily.

The game is divided up into different Acts which you must complete. I think there's 4 total. And it took me until almost the end of the second Act to realize that those round purple things all over the place with the yellow centers aren't backpacks - they're the film gels I've been supposed to be keeping an eye out for this whole time! Boy, did I feel dumb. A tiny glitch (but one you can live with) is that if you walk through a film gel to pick it up, Miley/Hannah will keep walking for another second or two longer than you want her to. Not terrible, but it gets annoying nonetheless.

These film gels become important later on when you go to make Hannah's music videos. You choose her backdrops, songs, lighting effects, wardrobe, and stage moves for each frame of the video. Now, is it pitiful that this game was designed for little girls, I'm 23, and couldn't get anything higher than a D rating on my videos? I edited them every which way I could think of, and still, nothing worked. If I can't even get it, how's a little kid supposed to? Yeah, that's what I thought. Even when I got to the end of the game and had unlocked just about everything there is to unlock, I still was unable to score any higher than that. There's got to be a trick to pulling this off. There just has to.

In the second act, Miley's art class is holding a charity drive in which everyone has to donate art. Or posters. Or something along those lines, I couldn't quite exactly follow how exactly their project was going to help charity. Then again, rock stars do doodles all the time for charity and auction them off... Well, anyway, the students of this class are sent out to the local art supply store in the mall to buy multicolored assorted shapes. They looked suspiciously like tanagrams to me...which, perhaps it was just my school, but I haven't seen or heard mention of those things since first grade. Why exactly would high school students be needing them again?

The art you put together with these pieces is all fairly simplistic, as you can imagine. But don't be fooled. Even on the easiest level, it's still a little challenging to get everything lined up juuuust right and turned in the right directions. I played this game on the easy setting, and even that was difficult; at best, I couldn't produce more than 5 art pieces in any given level. I don't know what the average is, but to me, it didn't feel like very many.

There's some mini-games in this that really make me question whether or not the sequences were even originally intended for this game or not, or if they were thrown in last minute. Case in point: the ice skating mini-game. Since when is Miley an ice skater? I don't recall her ever being one. I even wondered for a moment if maybe Disney might have had an idea for a DS game based off of their made-for-TV movie "Ice Princess" but then they couldn't flesh it out into enough of a full game, so they cut their losses and crammed as much of it as possible into this minigame. The general concept is simple; on the bottom screen, you trace the shapes that appear, and as long as you manage to cover the entire area in time, Miley will execute that particular maneuver. If you miss even a little bit of it though, Miley will begin to wobble on the ice, and you only have a small timeframe in which to recover from this or she will fall and you'll lose the round. With the exception of the double squares pattern, I found this part to be very easy.

And then there's still other mini-games that make me question Disney's judgement altogether, like the one where you're basically breaking into Mr. Stewart's storage unit or lockers at school. It doesn't seem like a very wise concept to be teaching kids that this is a completely acceptable idea. Or maybe I'm just old fashioned. It just doesn't seem like a very wholesome skill to be teaching; lock-picking I mean.

I much prefer the pizza making mini-game myself. Sure, it's unrealistic in the fact that the toppings all get hurled across the screen and you have to both count out and catch the appropriate toppings that match the ones on each order ticket. And yet, it's still strangely alluring to me. Maybe it's my Italian heritage coming out and drawing me toward this one, but I liked it!

The RC car mini-game is very, very forgettable. Run of the mill in just about every sense of the word here, folks. Don't expect any surprises with it, or you'll be disappointed.

One last gripe I have about the gameplay: switching between Miley and Hannah SO dang frequently. OMG. There's situations where you're already dressed as Hannah, you have to undress as Miley to move ONE space, just to change back into Hannah. Not only is this incredibly aggravating, it left me feeling almost schizophrenic with the dual personalities. (Can we say "Sybil", anyone?)

I was only able to play this game for limited periods of a time at a time. I don't know if it was all the intense vibrant colors that permeate the entire game or the annoyingness of the music or what it is, but every time I've played it, I've ended up with a massive headache afterwards without fail. Has anyone else played this game who can tell me if it had the same effect on them?

I'm going to give this game a rating of 6 out of 10 little Hannahs. Not terrible, not great, but somewhere down the middle of the road. It's bound to keep little ones quiet during long car trips (unless, of course, they lack headphones or insist upon singing to the songs). A must-have for the avid Hannah Montana collector; a take it or leave it for the rest of the population.