Innovative concept, fun and educational

Author's Rating:

Pros: Non-violent musical fun for all ages.

Cons: Not enough songs.

The Bottom Line: 
Non-violent, musical family fun

Author's Review
For the right person Wii Music is an excellent "game".   For someone looking for another Guitar Hero type game you will be disappointed.

Wii Music is about the joy of making music not and is not about learning how to play an instrument.  Its for people who just want to pick up and instrument and try it out. Imagine a kid let loose in the music room at school and allowed to just try anything.

The controls are keep very simple.  For guitar like instruments you simply strum without worrying about the actual notes which are selected by the game engine.  Drums and piano type instruments are played by waving your hands up and down.  Brass instruments are played by holding the remote near your mouth and using the 1 and 2 buttons.

Game play is kind of hard to explain but you in Jam mode you basically try to follow the tempo of the song and add your own flourishes. You can play with up to four people or even laydown each track with the overdub feature.  When you are done you can save your work in a video that can be shared.

Wii Music includes a couple of fun mini-games.  In one you play the conductor - waving your hands around to keep the tempo and add your own flourishes to the composition.

Handbell Harmony is a lot of fun as you play a song ala guitar hero, ringing the bells as the music notes go by.  This can be a lot of fun at a party if you have four remotes/nuchucks and share them so eight people can actually play!

Pitch Perfect is a little game in which you have to pick the Mii playing the right note.

Wii Fit owners will find that Wii Music takes advantage of the balance board with the drums.  You can take a drum lesson or do a Jam Session with the drums using the balance board to control the cymbols.

My energentic nine year old who loves playing music (and making noise) really enjoys this game as did the extended family gathered for the Christmas holiday.  Its not difficult to  figure out and allows people who may not have had exposure to musical instruments play around with concepts like melody, harmony, percussion, etc.

This game really lives up to the promise of the Wii platform as a pure fun environment for all ages.  A game like this takes the video game out of the kids bedroom and into the living room where the whole family can interact and have fun together.

My only gripe is that they could be more songs.  Most of the songs are traditional standards, public domain classics which is fine but the song list is not that long.  It would be nice to be able to download more songs somehow.

Game Highlights:

Play 60 instruments (including the Dog Suit!)
Virtual Drum Set for the Wii Fit Balence Board
Rated E for Everyone
Part of the "Touch Generations" category
Nitendo Wi-Fi Connection for sharing videos
Up to 4 players (eight if you share controllers on Handbell Harmony!)