‘Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked!’ Review

Game: Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked!
Developer: Behaviour Interactive
Platform: Xbox 360 with Kinect
Achievements: 6 out of 9, 600/1000 points

I have a body image problem.
My arms are too long.
My head is way too small.
My legs don’t end in hideous brown paws that look like they’re about to claw your eyes out.*

Thank you, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked for pointing this all out to me.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked is a dancing game for the Xbox 360/Kinect that’s in the vein of Dance Central 1 and 2 and Nickelodeon Dance games. The game itself is a direct tie-in to the just released movie of the same name. This is the third movie starring the Chipmunks—Alvin, Simon, and Theodore—and their female counterparts, the Chipettes—Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor.

The main mechanic of these dancing games is to mirror the dance moves being displayed by the onscreen characters. Players are informed of upcoming dance moves via cue cards that scroll across the screen, either horizontally or vertically, depending on the game. The onscreen characters will then perform the dance move and the player is expected to match their movements. This is where we come to the biggest fault of Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.

In the Dance Central series, the onscreen avatars are humans who are both more hip and more coordinated than I will ever be. In Nickelodeon Dance, the avatars in the foreground are famous cartoon characters from Nickelodeon cartoons, such as Dora, Diego, and a whole host of Backyardigans. In Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked the avatars are either the Chipmunks or the Chipettes.

The key to mirroring all of these onscreen avatars is precisely placing your appendages in the positions displayed. As the avatars in Dance Central are human, their body proportions are relatively approximate to the player and it is easy to intuit, though difficult to execute, the very hip dance moves. The cartoon avatars of Nickelodeon Dance do not have human bodily proportions and it can be difficult to mimic their movements. The game thankfully provides human backup dancers that are, well, human. The player can easily watch the backup dancers and imitate their movements. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked only provides the anthropomorphized chipmunks as avatars.

While playing the game with my daughter, it was difficult even for me to mimic some of the dance moves of the Chipmunks. Do my hands go above my head? Do my feet move forward this much? What angle should I place my tiny, tiny noggin? My daughter quickly got frustrated in many of the songs, as compared to Nickelodeon Dance where she can continue playing long after her weary father has to take a breather—Don’t judge me! The Kinect told me to take a break!

The designers of the game did attempt to alleviate this problem by providing additional feedback to the player. Typically in these early days of the Kinect dancing game genre, feedback on body position is provided by colored outlines on the avatars. Depending on how well you match the avatar’s body, the corresponding appendage will be outlined in red—You’re way off, buddy!—or green—You’re too cool for school! As mentioned above, the non-human body proportions on the Chipmunks make this feedback less than useful. The designers do provide the “raw” Kinect video feed in the lower right hand of the screen. This video feed shows the outline of your body that the Kinect is detecting. This feedback is much appreciated since you can actually see what you look like while dancing and can, in theory, adjust your movements. The downside to this feedback is that, in practice, I rarely looked at it. While playing, I’m already attending to the dance cue cards to see what move is coming up as well as the dancing Chipmunk that takes up the majority of screen real estate. If I have time to glance at the video feed, I would end up making a mistake in my current dance move.

Overall, the main dancing mechanic of the game is flawed. The dancing animations themselves are not smooth as the Chipmunks transition between dance moves. This becomes very apparent in fast songs such as Love Shack and Crocodile Rock. Speaking of songs, the box declares that the game “Features 30 Hit Songs!” This is ultimately true, if we’re talking about hit songs from the late 80s and early 90s. I don’t know if it was a personal dream to hear one of my favorite Cure songs—Just Like Heaven—sung by the Chipmunks, but thank you for making that come true, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. The game is rated for 10+, but the music is aimed at 30+. It’s a bit surprising as the music in the movie is considerably more contemporary and recognizable by the target audience. Personally, I don’t have an issue with the music, as I like most of the songs in the game. As a movie tie-in though, the song selection is questionable.

Behavior Interactive does add some novel customization features to the dancing genre, allowing players to purchase hats, glasses, and a top for their chosen Chipmunk. The customization is more in-depth than the all costume change presented in Dance Central. In the end, I can’t recommend this game. I found it more perplexing than fun and with alternatives such as Dance Central for the adults and Nickelodeon Dance for the kids, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked falls short.

*In retrospect, there’s a good reason why the early cartoons had all the Chipmunks wear sneakers. The anthropomorphized giant Chipmunk feet are the things of nightmares.

A copy of this product was provided for review purposes.

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