In his latest movie, The Woman In Black, Dan traded his Hogwarts uniform for a totally new role as a Dad.
Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’s latest music video and much more!
Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!
Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.
When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.
The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.
Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.
Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.
Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.
David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.
Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.
Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”
Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.
Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.
During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.
There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.
When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.
It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.
Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.
Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.
This game made me uncomfortable. It’s not very often you see a grown man cheer, let alone an out of shape hairy man do so in the comforts of his own room… but let’s just say it is better done this way than outside in public. How does such a person defy logic and cheer on his own in private? Well, it’s all thanks to the magical wonders of technology! With this newly released cheer simulator developed by Gorilla Systems Corp. and Published by THQ for the Wii and DS, now you too can become the cheerleader captain with All Star Cheer Squad!
This review, based on the Wii version might not give you the specific details you’re looking for, but this is because it comes from the perspective of a man, a man who fears cheering and physical activity, which is pretty awful considering this game utilizes the Wii Fit’s balance board for extra movement and realism. All in all the quick and dirty of it is that this is a full body rhythm game with a cheerleader background and story.
The main aspect of All Star is that you are an aspiring cheerleader; you begin by creating your character with a few hairstyles, faces, a number of costume choices and music background. You must first make the tryouts and as you learn new cheers, practice, create routines, and compete you hopefully eventually achieve your goal of becoming squad captain! There is also a multiplayer vs. mode (complete with ‘attacks against each other’), practice mode, and create your own routine mode to use while practicing. The menu and system is streamlined well, however the only issue I had with the layout was the annoying loading times between each and every screen! Click something, wait a good five seconds, choose an option wait five seconds, start a match wait 15 seconds, change your mind and go back to the menu wait another ten seconds and so on.
Graphically the game looks to be made for a last gen system, but as this is a Wii title, we come to understand the fanciest of graphics are rarely as important as how they represent the title. For All Star Cheer Squad, these graphics do the job. They’re simply rendered but realistic (in the cheerleading sense) and proportional to a degree where the body shapes are attainable but still provide a bad misconception to today’s youth. With your moves on the bottom and all the ‘action’ happening in the background (like Guitar Hero or Rockband), the characters move the way a programmed code would, no motion capturing here. Plastic smiles unchanging adore every girl or boy’s face the entire time and as the moves progress; you don’t see any wear on their spirit. Glitz, glamour and sparks round out the special effects. The venues seem as realistic as cheerleading movies lead me to believe, from gymnasiums, to stadiums with cheering fans (ironic?), to beaches, these squads would go to the ends of the world to cheer their hearts out!
Sound wise as soon as you pop this disc in you can tell it’s for the cheerleading fans of the gaming world. High energy dance / cheer-tastic songs that I have never heard of fill the air at all times and with over 25 songs to choose from, if you like this type of music, you could be happy for a while. While all the music seems to be from the same audio world, there is somehow a feel of variance between the majority of songs, keeping things fresh for players and sanity intact for bystanders. Voice acting was also very well received with on cue marks and even a few celebrity drop-ins!
Now let’s get onto the important stuff. The gameplay is always key, especially for a title that utilizes your entire body. All Star Cheer Squad requires a wiimote and a nunchuk to play, and will warn you of such before beginning each game. You follow the hand movements as they come up to do the cheer moves in game. This seems simple enough however you must keep in mind of the cable connecting the wiimote to the nunchuk and how easily you can wrap that cord around your neck (if a 24 year old could do it, I’m sure a 7 year old might be able to as well). The opposite is that the cord also restrains players from doing full out spread eagle moves the width of their arms as the cord is too short, so players must hold back their cheer spirit for safety and durability concerns. There are many different positions players must take to cheer along with the squad, and by many I mean many! Say for example there are 50 normal poses, on top of this, you can have reversed poses, poses that use both the remote and nunchuk together, and then the button combos, power-ups, and balance. Oh ya, did I also mention the Wii Fit Balance Board is also an optional accessory with this title? That’s right! Turn on your balance board and you can add extra balance challenges and foot movements for the most realistic cheering experience on a video game console to date!
While I admit this game was a little tough for my uncoordinated self, I found that after a couple of hours of messing around, even I started to get the hang of it! Friendly for all ages (with different difficulty levels) two player action, and even a somewhat realistic story mode, if you have an aspiring cheerleader in your family, I suggest you help them practice at home to be that next squad captain with All Star Cheer Squad for the Nintendo Wii! This game was so damn perky!
Gameplay: 4/5
Graphics: 3.5/5
Sound: 3.5/5
Replay Value: 3.5/5
