Requires Kinect sensor

Three loud cheers are in order as 2K Play introduces the sport of Cheerleading to Kinect for Xbox 360. Cheer enthusiasts will learn to master moves like the High V and jumps such as the Toe Touch, resulting in a controller-free, full-body cheerleading experience. Whether cheering on the field of a varsity football game or dancing their hearts out in a national cheerleading competition, players will be challenged to keep the beat, break a sweat and start earning spirit stars!

Features:

• Learn real world cheers and competitive routines choreographed and motion captured by professional cheerleaders.
• Master basic cheerleading motions like the High V, Broken T, or Right Punch to more advanced, combination moves including the Blade Cap and Touchdown Sway.
• Show off your skills with controller-free, full body cheerleading jumps like the Toe Touch, Double Hook and Herkie.
• Perform, compete and get your heart pumping to iconic, licensed cheerleading songs and popular cheer dance hits.
• Cheer voice recognition technology rates your spirit level and makes sure you stay on count. Earn spirit stars to rank-up, unlock new routines and advance all the way to Nationals.
• Multi-player mode encourages friendly competition and team work.

User Reviews

“Let's Cheer for Kinect is another one of those games that many people will scoff at the idea of, but when you look beneath the surface you'll find a surprisingly well designed game that really shows what the Kinect is capable of in terms of being a simulation and teaching tool.The target audience for Let's Cheer is obviously teen and young teen girls. But anyone who is willing to toss their inhibitions aside can enjoy it and get a pretty decent workout. When you start the game, you select a "squad captain” and a color of your uniform. You have a limited choice at the beginning, but as the game progresses additional choices will unlock.

The main menu is simple and consists of three choices: Cheers, Extras, and Select Squad Members. When you select “Cheers”, you see a menu of five levels of increasing intensity: Local, District, State, Regionals, and Nationals. Each of these levels contains a combination of short cheerleading chants (of the “go team go” variety) or longer dance routines to popular music. Some of the chants and dance routines are locked and can be unlocked only as you progress through earlier levels. For example, on the “Local” level you have the following options:

• Defense Attack (football chant)
• Let's Get Fired Up (general sports chant)
• Shoot for Two (basketball chant)
• Celebration (dance routine)
• Rebound That Basketball (basketball chant)
• That's the Way I Like It (dance routine)

Each chant or routine is assigned a difficulty level of 1 to 5. Regardless of whether you choose a chant or a dance routine, you'll have three options: Train, Perform, or play as a 2-player team.

As with games like Dance Central, your job is to mirror the moves the on-screen character is making, and if you don't match the motion properly the part of your body that you're not moving will glow red. Also as with Dance Central, each sequence is broken down into components, but instead of dance moves they're cheerleading moves with names like “Blade Clip”, “Punch It Up Twist”, “Jazz It High” and “Reverse Stop Stop Turn”, all identified by icons on the side so you can always anticipate the next move that's coming. For each chant or dance routine you can also choose Easy, Moderate, or Hard which will affect the complexity of the motions within the routine.

“Train” breaks down the chant or dance routine in slow motion so you can learn and memorize the moves. For chants, after you've done it once in slow motion, you'll be able to do it again at full speed. The “hard” setting at any level really starts to approach the complexity of real cheerleading.

“Perform” will have you lead a whole squad in doing the routine you just practiced in a competitive setting complete with announcer and cheering crowds. Your task is to do the routine as perfectly as possible. The better you do it, the more stars you'll get, which will help you unlock other routines. As you complete performances, you'll also be able to pose for pictures on “magazine covers”.

“2-Player” is like Perform, except that instead of an entire squad dancing it's just two cheerleaders standing next to each other. Each cheerleader is controlled by a different player standing in front of the Kinect. It's a great way for two friends to practice dancing together, and also to complete by seeing who can do it most flawlessly. The space limitation of the Kinect is a bit of a concern with routines where you're spinning and flailing your arms in all different directions, but for the most part the motion detection was very good.

As you progress through the game, you'll encounter many more football, basketball, and general cheers such as “Come on, Let's Score” and “Big G Little O”, which are actual classic cheerleader chants. You'll also encounter a large number of dance routines to popular music, including Celebration (Kool and the Gang), That's the Way I Like It (KC and the Sunshine Band), I Like to Move It (), Hollaback Girl (Gwen Stefani), Disturbia (Rihanna), When I Grow Up (Pussycat Dolls), Mickey (Toni Basil), Starstrukk (3OH!3), Just Dance (Lady Gaga), Shake It (Metro Station).

Motion detection for the most part was spot-on. You really do need to match the on-screen character's motions precisely if you want a perfect score. In the “Extras” menu you can turn on calorie tracking. It's not a very accurate count, since it can't detect how intense your motions are nor what your weight is (which technically will dictate how many calories you burn). But it's a nice reminder that you are burning some calories. As with most games of this ilk, you can fake your way through it, but you'll only get a real fitness boost if you put your whole body into it. Under Extras you can also view Stats and view Magazine Covers.

Overall, I wouldn't say this was a particularly strenuous workout game, but it does get you moving. At its core, it's really a cheerleading simulation game, and not a bad one at that. If you have young girls in the house who may aspire to get into cheerleading, I'd say this is not a bad way to get a rough gauge of their interest and their aptitude. And if you have girls who are cheerleaders already, I think they'll appreciate the detail and realism (in terms of cheerleading routines) that went into this game." Nutwiisystem.Com

“I have a two teen daughters who both cheer for our local football team. The girls and their friends LOVE this game. They are not only having fun jumping and yelling but they are also getting ideas about their own cheer routines. I definitely recommend this game to any parent with active teenagers.” Dapoofy