The premise of We Cheer is fairly simple. You are the leader of a cheerleading squad trying to reach the top of the heap by competing in various song challenges. Each song is accompanied by various cheerleading dance moves that you copy with your Wii remotes. A line with hearts traces out the movements, ending in a star. The star denotes where your remote should be at the end of the movement. It certainly sounds simple, but believe me, it's much harder than it sounds. I have yet to completely pass a level, but I have had a lot of fun doing it. I did notice that the more I practiced, the better I got at nailing the songs, but it did seem that often the positions wouldn't register even though I was holding in the right place. Having seen this same problem crop up in a few other Wii rhythm games, I'm going to chalk this up to a hardware issue rather than one with the game itself.

There are several game modes including a practice mode, Championship mode (main gameplay), two player versus, up to four person co-op and even an exercise mode. For completing the various levels and modes you can also receive new outfit pieces like skirts, tops and tennis shoes. The exercise mode takes you through a variety of aerobic movements and comes in a short or long version. I have to say it was quite the workout and I was breathing heavy when it was all over. Completing it the first time netted me a new skirt that I was quite happy with and led me to think that exercising would be much more fun if you were rewarded with an article of clothing at the end.

Despite the notable lack of male cheerleader characters, We Cheer comes off as not only girly, but unintentionally gay. Rainbows and flowers abound and you can give your whole squad makeovers that include skin tone, hairstyle and color, outfit choices and you can even put in your own words to emblazon across your teams chests. Are all these things necessarily "gay?" No, of course not. But they are certainly things that a faction of gay men and women will find much more appealing than their heterosexual male gamer counterparts.

The graphics are appropriately cute and cartoony and the cheerleaders have that large head, big eyed look that is so popular today. Interestingly, this look was also extremely popular in sixties home art, spearheaded by the artist Margaret Keane. Everything old is new again! The soundtrack is similarly engaging with a mix of old and new songs by such artists as Moby, The Go Team, KC and the Sunshine Band and Donna Summer. While I wasn't familiar with absolutely all of the songs, there were enough that I did know on each level to keep me from feeling completely out of touch with the music scene.

We Cheer is certainly not for everyone. There will be those that find it too girly or don't care to embarrass themselves by dancing around their living rooms. But, for those of you who have no such boundaries (such as myself) will likely find it a lot of fun. So put on your tightest sweater, pick up those pom-poms and get ready to cheer your heart out with We Cheer. Bitchy attitude and hunky football player boyfriend sold separately.

8 out of 10