Hannah Montana: Rock Out the Show for PSP Reviews by Gamers

If it's not immediately obvious, I'm not a pre-teen girl with an obsession for Miley Ray Cyrus' latest exploits. I have nothing against the Disney starlet's startlingly popular career, but I don't quite fall into the target audience for her music. This failure to see through the eyes of a giddy schoolgirl was not the reason that I loathed Hannah Montana: The Movie (the game), which was released earlier this year. That game was just downright embarrassing. So it was with reluctance that I picked up Hannah Montana: Rock Out the Show, the latest portable outing for Miley/Hannah. Surprisingly, this game is far superior to its predecessors, though still nowhere near the level of quality that we've come to expect from modern music/rhythm titles.



In case you're unfamiliar with the Hannah Montana brand, the massive franchise stars singer/actress Miley Ray Cyrus as a simple country girl that happens to be (secretly) an international pop star. This duality is the crux of the Hannah Montana experience and is usually focused on in the TV series and videogames.



Hannah Montana: Rock Out the Show is a fairly straight-forward game that tasks players with guiding Miley through an international concert tour, while her dad is stuck at home ill. The story is told through animated "cardboard cutouts" of the actors with fully voiced dialogue tracks. Don't expect to hear Miley Cyrus and Emily Osment though, as sound-a-likes are used to fill in the aural void.



The chatter in between concerts is some of the corniest stuff I've ever heard in my life -- perhaps even surpassing the already ham-filled dialogue of the TV series. However, I imagine Hannah fans will still get a kick out of it, so I can't really complain too much there.



When it comes time to put on a show, players can customize their concert experience by tweaking/designing the stage in question, picking out outfits for Miley and her backup dancers, as well as design Miley's "Rockstar Moment." This entails setting up the lighting and special effects for a small section of the performance -- it's just another way to personalize the concert.



When the music starts, players are tasked with playing several mini-games back-to-back that represent different instruments on stage. For example, performing with the drummer means tapping the R and L triggers along with a small visual cue on the top left of the screen, while dancing with the backup performers involves pressing the D-pad in time with the dance moves. Each mini-game only lasts for a few moments, and then you can select a new instrument to run over to in order to score more points. Although the mini-games feel pretty similar, it's nice that you can get a sense of variety when hopping between tasks mid-song.



As far as rhythm games go, Hannah Montana: Rock Out the Show is one of the easiest games I've played in a long while, though I suppose that's appropriate for the target audience. Even still, it would have been nice to see a few varying difficulty levels for more advanced players. As it stands, Rock Out the Show can be beaten in just an hour or two of play time, which is a little disappointing, considering its $40 price tag (if you can find it outside of the Lilac PSP bundle).



With more than ten songs to play along with, this game might actually win over younger girls that have access to a PSP or who have recently purchased the aforementioned super cute Lilac system. From the perspective of a rhythm game fan though, Rock Out the Show is painfully easy, limited (in its track list) and short. With that said, it's still a huge improvement over the other Hannah Montana games I've played, as the rhythm sections feel much more responsive and there isn't an absurdly paced "quest" to go along with the performances.



But being better than a game that scored a 2.3 isn't exactly a tremendous accomplishment.

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