High School Musical: DVD Game (DVD)

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Prom Night is the equivalent to the dance steps game on the "Hannah" disc. Martha Cox guides you through four phases of dance moves for eight different songs: "Breaking Free" and "Work This Out" on the beginner level; "Fabulous," "Bet on It," and "What I've Been Looking For" on the intermediate level; and "I Don't Dance," "Bop to the Top," and "Get'cha Head in the Game" on the advanced level. Again, as with the "Hannah" dance off, you get a nine-square grid on the screen that shows footsteps, along with a shadow-figure that shows whole body and hand movement at the top of the screen, and stars scrolling down like screensavers of old.

Center Stage isn't really a game at all, but a sing-along with a gigantic microphone on the screen and a row of empty seats in an auditorium for the background. Song choices are "Fabulous," "Now or Never," "Bob to the Top," "The Boys are Back," "Bet on It," "Breaking Free," and "Humuhumunukunukuapua'a," which includes Sharpay's asides as well.

Pep Rally is one of the two games that needs at least two people, and while it's in theory a great idea, the execution leaves a little to be desired. You clap to the beat of a song and when it's your turn you shout out a word or phrase on the beat. If it's school subjects, for example, you call out "math," "biology," history," etc. If you miss a beat, your turn's up. Only the beat isn't clearly defined, so that's a ground rule you have to make, and it's not clear instantly who's supposed to go first. Again, you've got to make up some of your own rules. Then you're on the honor system, because when someone messes up you click on "someone messed up" and select the avatar of the character.

BFF's is a how-well-do-you-know-your-friend quiz. First you take the quiz to guess how your friend will answer a set of questions, then your friend answers the questions. And then you switch roles, with the computer scoring who did best.

For the four-or-more party games, you group into two teams and try to beat the clock for extra points:

Vocab Test is a little like Catchphrase, only in addition to getting people to guess the word without actually saying it or a form of it, you're also restricted from saying three additional key words.

Art Class is like Pictionary, insomuch as you're asked to draw things for your team to guess.

Drama Class is like Charades, with participants asked to act out the subject without speaking.

One nice thing, as with the "Hannah Montana" game, is that you can have the computer game mix it up for you to keep things interesting.

Video:
As with most things Disney, the video quality is good, with bright colors and a sharpness that's relative to the fact that this is a DVD. There's nothing astounding to report about the production values and nothing to expose. It's just a good basic presentation, with clips that appear to be a mixture of 1.33:1 and 1.66:1 aspect ratio.

Audio:
The audio is a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, and again falls into that range of not being stellar and not being wanting. It's just a good solid mix that's perhaps transferred to disc at a little higher volume than most parents would appreciate. You'll have to play it at a lower level than usual.

Extras:
It's ALL bonus features. Like the "Hannah Montana" DVD game, this one plays on both a stand-alone DVD or Blu-ray player as well as a computer.

Bottom Line:
It's not perfect, and all games won't be for everyone, but there's enough here to probably satisfy most "High School Musical" fans, especially the younger ones. This disc has pajama party written all over it. And if these games appeared as bonus features on a movie DVD, I'd probably rate them a 7 out of 10. Just bear in mind, gamers, that these are DVD bonus feature games, and nothing close to the slick-graphics, multi-level computer games people are playing.

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