ABBA – You Can Dance {Review}

I was a child of the 70’s and one of my most favorite things to this day is the music from that decade. When I was offered the opportunity to try out ABBA You Can Dance on the Wii from the fabulous creators of the Just Dance games, Ubisoft, I boogied my fingers across the keyboard to accept the task. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it, right? I immediately thought of the one song that is the most classic and probably well known of ABBA songs, Dancing Queen. Aside from that I honestly couldn’t think off the top of my head what other songs they sang, but I was sure there would be many that I know, but regardless, we’d have fun dancing…..dancing….dancing! Of course no 70’s party, or really any party for that matter, is complete without a disco ball. A disco ball that rotates? All kinds of dyno-mite!

Let’s talk a little about the basics of the game and some of the things that were totally far out and outta sight! By now you think I’m totally hip with my 70’s lingo, you have no idea I’m so hip because you don’t actually know the lingo, or you’re completely annoyed because I’m overdoing it with the lingo. Regardless of what you’re thinking, let’s keep on truckin’ and get jive talkin’ about this game, shall we?

A sampling of the tunes:

Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, Waterloo, Knowing me Knowing you, Take a Chance on me, and MANY more!

The play options:

You Can Dance – Dance. Get your groove on. Boogie down.

Mini- Musical – We haven’t tried this option yet, but you can sing, dance, and follow a story that is communicated through music and dance moves. Sounds like it might be fun, but maybe a little complicated for my crew. I mean, we like to boogie and we like to sing, but it might be comical if we tried to do both at the same time.

Karaoke– Oh yeah baby, you read that right. This game has a karaoke feature. No more singing in the shower or screeching in the car. You can belt out Dancing Queen, or your favorite ABBA song, as long as you have a USB microphone. We just happen to have a microphone so you bet we did some singing. Now I don’t pretend to believe I have a good voice, but I don’t need anybody else verifying that fact for me, raining on my parade when it’s my moment to shine, ahem, my husband should be reading this right now. Even better? Get a friend to sing along with you because up to two more players can join in on the karaoke fun!

Basically if you love to dance, or watch and point at others while they dance, you this game is fun. We had kids and adults both playing along (nobody else wanted to be on camera – party poopers) and the moves were pretty easy for everyone to follow along, which makes this is a great choice if you are new to this kind of a game.  Unfortunately, since it is strictly devoted to ABBA, we played and re-played a few of the same songs, but didn’t make any attempts with the other titles that we’re less familiar with. However, if you love, I mean l-o-v-e, love ABBA, then you will have so much fun with this game because not only can you dance and sing along with all of your favorite songs, but there’s actual performances from the group themselves, which I found to be absolutely cool. While playing the game look to the back of the screen and you will see authentic content including actual ABBA music videos, live concert footage, and classic photos. For me, this is what makes this game stand out from other games of this type that I’ve played. While I prefer a variety of artists and songs, I find the footage shared on the screen as I play the game is absolutely special, just plain neat, and fun to enjoy when it’s my turn to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show, I mean watch others play the game.

Bonus feature:

When in the dance mode you can also sing along with any of the tracks as long as your microphone is plugged in. In our case, my husband sang along while I danced. If you do the whole dancing and singing at the same time please let me know how it works out for ya. I am simply not at that level of competence yet with the game, but you can bet I’m totally a the Dancing Queen. And I have a video to prove it.

I know, I know, you totally want to hang out with me and have dancing parties together because I’ve got some serious moves and a disco ball. After this, though, I’m sure I’ll barely have time for anyone else because I’ll need to go on the talk show circuit to share my experience and my groovy moves with everyone in America. What?! It could totally happen. For real, though, since we probably can’t actually play together, you should absolutely buy the game for yourself and it’s as easy as clicking on over to Amazon or ToysRUs. I’m happy to give tips or advice if you need it, too, because I’m a giver and I care about you and your dancing skills.
Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this blog post. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.