As my daughter was getting the high school musical cheerleading outfit complete with pom poms for Christmas this seemed like the ideal game for the wii to go along with it and yes ok I'll put my hands up and admit that I quite fancied it too.

The game is readily available at the excellent price of £14.99 and another great selling point is that it can be used with the wii fit board although it is a stand alone game if you don't have a board.

The marketing blurb about the game claims it has the:

"Latest cheer action and top routines designed by Tony G, world renowned cheer choreographer, best known for his work on the "Bring It On" movies".

There are four selections on the main menu:-

Career - Work your way up through the trials
Quickplay - Practice or compete just for fun
Multiplayer - Allows 2-4 players to cheer with or against
each other, unfortunately we only have one nunchuck
Extras - Make up your own cheers

We started with learning simple cheers under quickplay such as how to position yourself as the letter A or E. To make the letters you need to plug the nunchuck into the wii-mote so that the wii sensor bar can tell how your hands are relating to each other in the cheers. I did read in several reviews of this before purchasing it that very tall people can't make some of the moves because the length of connection between the wii mote and nunchuck isn't long enough. My nephew however is almost 6 feet tall and he didn't have a problem with it so I can't give a definitive answer on how tall you can be before the connection length becomes a problem.

We didn't last long on the learning curve though deciding to give it a go doing cheers with the squad and learning as we went along. Although they won't admit it outside the house as well as my niece, sis-in-law, myself and daughter all fighting over who's go it was, my two boys and 17 year old nephew were also up there grooving along to give me an E, give me a K.

You start by creating your character to allow you to join a cheerleading squad this includes changing, hair, outfits etc. Then the fun begins:-

We started at the opening rounds and the cheers were short and very easy to follow even my four year old (with help) and boys scored a B grade on their first go. Only one person managed to score an A grade straight off but obviously she wouldn't want to boast about it hmmm hmmm (ME). It was fun and a little in the way of exercise and easy to catch on.

The scoring is a little like the dance games, you have to move your hands through to the correct position for the cheer at the same time as the cheer symbol hits the correct edge of the circle. Points are scored for position and timing.

The simplest moves are arms straight ahead or over shoulders, more difficult ones have one arm forward one arm bent at the side and the A button requiring to be pressed. This may not sound to difficult but its hard enough as the game speeds up and you are constantly changing position.

There are chain moves the little cheer icons are joined together with little chains and if you get them correctly it's a bit like getting a streak on the dance mat, guitar hero or singstar, which helps your score to rise quickly.

There are also balance moves which show as a star and arrow. For these you need to rotate your wrists to get the arrows pointing to the small target star. If the star glows you are racking up the points.

Combo moves are extended cheer sequences that require you to move your hands like you are winding something up, a kind of spinning motion. The more you spin the higher your score.
There were a few times though that I know I was doing the correct action at the correct time and the move didn't receive a mark. A bit annoying if you have a competitive streak.

Unforturnately the time taken between each set of cheers is ridiculous. The cheer you are following lasts for about 30-45 seconds but you have to wait that long again at the end of each one to follow onto the next cheer. I find this very frustrating as does my daughter and means we give up playing the game sooner than we would like to, because we are fed up hanging around waiting.

The cheers become increasingly difficult as you move your way through the tournaments but they are just the right amount of difficulty to stretch you but not prove totally impossible after a few practices.

As I was doing so well with the arms I thought it would be fun and good exercise to include the wii board, what a mistake. I'm not naturally sporty I just enjoy team games and having a laugh so me trying to co-ordinate my arms and legs at the same time while checking the instructions and timings on screen was just impossible. I think if you had a good knowledge of the arm movements first you would probably be able to give all your attention to learning the leg movements and when to move which foot up and down on the wii fit board. It also seemed to add more time to reset everything if you used the wii board as it switched off after each go.

You can move onto Challenges where you play head to head against another cheerleader. You have to outperform that person and if you can score three perfects you can use this to attack your opponents cheer line. I haven't reached this part of the game yet as I get so tired of the waiting around between goes that I give up playing after about fifteen minutes.

The graphics are quite cartoony but the characters look well, their movement is easy to recognize and copy and you get what you pay for which in this case is acceptable.

This is a great fun game for young and not so young girls (and boys as long as no-one is looking) and has a good few hours play in it with over three hundred different cheers to learn especially if they have friends round. The time taken between screens and the occasionally miss scoring of your perfectly aligned cheer are the only bad things on this game. For the price though it's not too bad.

Although I'm tempted to give it a decent 3 - 4 star rating I have to drop a star for the long loading time between sessions and the fact that my wii fit board on the oddtime we tried to use it kept cutting off after each session and we had to wait on it restarting. So I guess since I can't give it a 2½ I'll be generous and give it a three.

If it moved through the sessions with the speed you get on a dance mat I'd play it more often and for longer.