For all of those aspiring cheerleaders out there, you now have your very own game, All Star Cheer Squad. Graphically it looks exactly what you are picturing. Well, maybe not some of you, but anyway.

You start off by creating your cheerleader. While there are a lot of options, personally I thought they all looked pretty much alike facially in the end, but that's not that big of a deal. You can choose from male or female characters. Then you get a variety of uniform tops and bottoms in quite a few colors. There are also several different hair styles, the normal hair color choices (no hot pink, blue, or anything other than natural looking hair), skin color choices, and even Cover Girl brand makeup. At least you can tell them all apart by the hair styles and skin color, since the faces don't differ too much. You cannot change their body type, though. I guess cheerleaders have to all weigh the same.

This is cheerleading, not dance line, so there's not a wide variety of music to be overheard. Most of it is dance music that you would expect to hear. There's not that many songs that are heavy on vocals as it would detract from the cheering. There are over 30 songs to choose from, so you do have a lot to work with.

There are a few different modes that you can play in All Star Cheer Squad. The main mode where you go through the story is Career Mode. Cheerleader tryouts are something that I can honestly say I have not been through until now. The first thing you have to do in Career Mode is try out to make the squad. You will be given practice sessions to show you how to do the moves before you are expected to perform. After you've completed the practice session with a score of C or better, those moves are unlocked for you to use in creating your own routines.

There are over 300 moves that you can use to create your own routines, at least after you've unlocked them all. To put them together, go to Extras, then Routine Designer. Choose New to start a new routine or Load to select a previous one. After that, you pick the music that you want to use as your background. Then you just start adding the moves that you want to use. Just remember that you've got to unlock them in Practice before they will show up here. By selecting Quickplay from the main screen, you can play these routines and any of the ones that you've unlocked in the Career Mode.

For those of you who are dying to start your own squad, you can play with up to four people in Multiplayer. Co-op will let you work together as a squad. If you're dying to compete in Bring It On style, you can choose Versus. You can play Versus as 1 on 1, 1 on 2, or 2 on 2. Do your best to get as many perfects as you can to win the competition.

All Star Cheer Squad turned out to be a lot more difficult than I expected. There are a whole lot of moves to get the hang of. Then once you've got those, you have to deal with hitting the buttons at the same time to simulate the leg movements. Then if you want even more of a challenge, you can add in the Wii balance board so that you have to be standing in the right position at the right time. Add all of these things together and you'll get your arms and legs tangled up very quickly if you're not careful about it.

There are two things that make it easier to play than it sounds. The first is the fact that the arrows on the screen that show you when to do the moves are in the same position that you need to have the Wii-mote and the Nunchuk in. This means that you don't have to memorize that some random symbol means do a random move. The other thing that makes it a little easier is that you don't have to be ultra precise, especially on the moves that aren't very different from each other. Just putting the controllers in approximately the right area at exactly the right time will get you a decent score.

So I guess by now you're wondering exactly how to play All Star Cheer Squad. You'll need both the Wii-mote and the Nunchuk to play. You'll notice a warning at the beginning of the game about the cord between the two being short if you're not careful. They are very accurate on that. I would recommend a wireless Nunchuk, but the one I tested, the Cord-Free Nunchuk, did not work on the game. Just be careful not to pull them too far apart and you'll be ok. If you opt to add the Wii balance board into the game, it will recalibrate it between every session. This gets annoying when you're just doing the practice sessions that don't really use it much anyway.

Keep the Wii-mote in your right hand and the Nunchuk in your left. Start out with your hands by your side. If you start with them together in front of you, it will read that as a cheer move before you want it to. You'll see your cheer line on the bottom of the screen. The cheer moves will go down that line from right to left. You want to do the move that is shown at the exact time that it hits the target on the left. If you're early or late, you'll get fewer points for the move. I found that the trick is to keep your hands in the previous position. That way, you never have it read the move before you want it to. You will not get 2 of the same moves in a row. The game does a very good job of showing you what to do in the practice sessions. After you get the basics down, you'll learn to use the feet too. These moves look like the normal ones, except for a letter beside them. You need to do the move and hit that button at the same time to simulate the feet movements. If you've added the Wii balance board, then it will be shown under the move as the board. You will need to be standing on the dots that are lit up along with doing the cheer and possibly hitting a button to get credit for that move. As you might guess, it takes some time to get used to all these moves, but you'll get the hang of it before long.

When I first got All Star Cheer Squad, I wasn't really thrilled about it. I was just the only one with a balance board that could test that part of it. But honestly I'm glad I did get it. It turned out to be a lot more fun than I expected. It's almost like DDR for your arms. If you're into cheerleading, I highly recommend this game. You can use it to design your own routines. Even if you're not a cheerleader, you'll still find enjoyment in it. It provides a good challenge for your coordination skills. I recommend you go get All Star Cheer Squad today. Believe me, I'm just as shocked as you that I say that, but it really is a fun game!