Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel is a rhythm game in which you must shake the Wii-mote and nunchuk in time with the on-screen prompts, which are loosely tied to the beats of songs performed by the Chipmunks.

Unfortunately, the only way to unlock any songs is to play through the story mode, so if your family is looking to play this for the first time and enjoy some Chipmunks music, you’ll have to play through the “World Tour” and unlock songs in the order the game chooses.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel’s gameplay is similar to other music and rhythm-style games we’ve played before, but there are a couple of nice new twists.  In the middle of songs, you’ll need to point the Wii-mote at the screen to catch musical notes, or lean from side to side in order to “dodge” the on-screen equalizer.  These are neat variations on some familiar gameplay, but they do require additional dexterity and make the game even harder for younger kids.

There is also a multiplayer mode, which allows up to three players to assume the role of one of the chipmunks.  Each player is presented with the exact same set of dance moves in the middle of the screen, and it’s a contest to see who can score better.  For each of the in-song mini-games, each player gets their own icon.

The basic dance animation and stage is essentially the same for every song, too, despite the fact that the Chipmunks are supposedly on a world tour.  Additionally, it’s worth noting that the story is presented through still-photos of the Chipmunk characters, with voiceovers, rather than with any animated characters.

Because of the slow pace of unlocking the songs, and the narrow overlap between the skill required for the gameplay and target age group of the subject material, we only really recommend this for big fans of the Chipmunks.