Metareview: Wii Music

We'll say this much for Wii Music: it's probably the game/toy/whatever that has become the most debated release of 2008. It's caught a lot of flak, particularly since E3 and that presentation, but it's also had its fair share of defenders. Unsurprisingly, this uncanny knack of dividing opinion has spread to professional reviewers.

GameSpy (70%) concedes that the title isn't for everybody, but thinks it will appeal to families and the chil'n: "It is far from a traditional videogame, and more akin to a tech demo or social audio experiment. The fact that it is so very basic means it's completely accessible to anyone, but at the same time there's not much here to interest regular and core gamers. It'll be a definite hit with younger children and in turn, parents and family members will love to watch the reactions of this demographic."
1UP (A-) was the first online outlet to get its review up, and managed to get us nicely hyped for the game with an absolutely stellar review and score: "Wii Music may have a hard time winning over the skeptics who just want to laugh at it, but give the game the chance it deserves. You just might realize it's pretty damn fun being in on the joke."
... Only for IGN's (50%) Matt Cassamina to deflate our enthusiasm with a fairly crushing verdict: "I think most adults will quickly recognize that Wii Music is little more than a noise maker tied to a series of gestures and grow bored of the experience in a matter of hours, if not minutes. The controls aren't particularly intuitive, but gimmicky, and the selection of music is fundamentally flawed with dated public domain songs rendered in equally dated MIDI."