Game Review: Bollywood Wannabe (PC)

Bollywood Wannabe takes the Rhythm Action genre and gives is a Bangra shake up… and how fantastic the shake up is!

My love of Rhythm Action games stretches so far back, I’m a moth to a flame for them but Bollywood Wannabe is one of most refreshing Rhythm games to come out for ages. Taking the story of making a low-budget Bollywood film, you’re tasked to dance your way through a scene to some absolutely amazing music from various Indian artists. A chart appears across the bottom asking you to press or hold a keyboard arrow to perform a dance move. Which one you press is up to you but you must vary your moves to keep the dance interesting. However, whilst doing that you need to traverse a relatively simple stage too. Whilst you’ll be moving right most of the time, you’ll also need to jump and drop off of balcony’s, cars, elephants and all sorts of things. The trick is that you can only perform the dance moves when your feet are on the floor. Whilst in Easy and Normal mode you can traverse the level with ease before the song ends, the timing really tightens up for Hard and Extreme modes. You can also have an easier one button mode for just pressing one arrow key for dance moves if you wish too.

Put simply, the game feels like a labour of love and for every button press you get right you are rewarded. The better you do, more dancers join the scene and there is an amazing amount of satisfaction when you’ve got a chorus of 20+ dancers mirroring your moves to the beat. Think the mass groups you’d collect in Space Channel 5 for getting things right and you’re there. The colours are vibrant and cartoon artwork suits the whole game perfectly.

Here’s a quick look at the first two levels to show the game in action:

Positives

-Excellent twist on the genre

-Amazing visuals

-Catchy superb soundtrack

-You feel constantly rewarded for your efforts

-Lots of different difficult options to please a variety of audiences

Negatives

-9 songs make it a shorter affair

Conclusion

When I started Bollywood Wannabe I couldn’t put the game down and played it from start to finish. It’s THAT good. Put simply, if you like rhythm action games – you need this.