Hannah Montana: Spotlight World Tour Review for the Nintendo Wii

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As is often the case for young budding musicians full of determination and ambition, launching a successful tour is nowhere near as glamorous as it’s frequently portrayed on TV (unless you happen to be among the rare few to be picked up by a major label willing to throw buckets of money at you). Sure it may seem like all fun and games, but it’s also hard work. In reality, going on tour with your band typically means driving in an old junker of a van across country for many hours, playing in dives for barely enough money to eat or even fill the gas tank, lugging your own equipment back and forth, and hoping you’ll make it back home without ending up broke. Of course that’s not how it goes when Disney is involved.

In the case of the fictional carefree TV teen pop star Hannah Montana, going on a tour – a world tour no less – is more in line with many teen fantasies of pop stardom. Far from the average band’s tour experience, this trip packs in heaping sugary spoonfuls of move-laden dance choreography, a bit of sass, and LOTS (with added emphasis on the lots) of shopping. Montana fans will find much to enjoy in Hannah Montana Spotlight World Tour, and other gamers may be surprised at what a little exercise can do for their button mashing skills.

Following the release of her newest CD, Montana hits the road on a global trek to put on a series of shows in major cities around the world. As you travel from one location to the next you’ll have an opportunity to see the sights and work the crowds in-between performances. Each new venue, though they look suspiciously familiar backstage, provides new and somewhat exciting opportunities to further propel your career towards superstardom. Occasional cutscenes and dialogue featuring main characters from the show add a little comedic flavor, complete with bad puns and laugh tracks.

To peg Spotlight World Tour as a music rhythm game would be only partially accurate. Sure, there’s plenty of music, 15 Hannah Montana tunes from the popular show to be exact, but during the bulk of the time you’re on stage you’ll have no bearing on how the tunes are actually performed. Instead, your job is to look cool by kicking out the funky dance moves to woo the audience, earn new fans, and put on a decently choreographed performance. This feat is accomplished by executing well-timed maneuvers with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to make Montana show off her signature moves. She’ll be singing most of the time, but the focus of performance gameplay is really on the dancing.

In early levels you’ll start with a handful of basic gestures to deal with including pointing up, down, left, right, at the screen, and even at your heart with either the Wii Remote (designated by blue colored symbols) or the Nunchuk (designated by pink colored symbols). Eventually, using either hand to make stirring motions, pretending the Nunchuk is a microphone, playing air guitar, making clapping and reverse clapping motions, and pointing with both hands simultaneously are thrown in to the routine.

During lulls in the dancing, Montana will approach the front of the stage to wave, hi-five, or touch the audience to score more points. A series of different combinations of symbols representing the numerous gestures will scroll across the screen, and players have to time their movements to match up when the symbol passes over a star indicator on-screen. Though the moves do frequently coincide with rhythms accentuated by the music, how successfully you pull off each move is determined more so by visual timing. Meanwhile, Montana and her back-up band rock out in the background. The controls work fine most of the time, but in general they’re not as responsive as they should be. Sometimes it seems a simple flick of the wrist is adequate to register a gesture while other times you’ll have to be more forceful. To compensate for unreliable motion controls players will likely find themselves over-gesturing just to make sure their movements register on-screen. After a few back-to-back rounds of this, you’ll have some seriously sore arms.

Performing on-stage before adoring fans takes up a significant portion of players’ time, yet there are numerous other pursuits to explore in the down time between shows. Each new city brings with it a streetscape chock full of storefronts to scour for new outfits. Not surprisingly, shopping plays an integral part in the game. This may sound odd coming from a guy, but buying new shoes, shirts, belts, hats, accessories, and other outfit accoutrements for Montana is actually kind of fun. You can mix and match outfits in the backstage dressing room anytime before or after a performance. The shopping areas also contain a smattering of extra mini-games raging from playing guitar in a local shop to signing autographs and striking a pose for a photo op.

Graphically, the game’s style is true to the show, and the character models actually closely resemble the actors. The shopping environments and free-roam areas in each location are visually impressive. Pedestrians respond with giggles, waves, requests for autographs, and star-struck swooning as you walk by. On-stage, the camera follows Montana closely front-and-center with little air time given to the band. One disappointment is the fact every back-stage area is laid out exactly the same way. Despite having slightly different scenery decorations, the cold gray concrete walls are constant in each venue, and there are moments where you’ll wonder if you’ve progressed to the next level or not.

With tighter, less frustrating (and painful) motion controls Spotlight World Tour could have the potential to hold its own in the rhythm game genre. As it stands, the lack of polish in this area keeps the game from rising above a niche title destined for the hands pre-teen girls. The shopping component, multi-player, and mini-games are touches fans will greatly appreciate, but for the rest of the gaming world the extra shine put into these areas may go largely unnoticed.

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