Cheetah Girls go international in new DS game

— -- In The Cheetah Girls: Passport to Stardom, a new Nintendo DS video game, the Disney-created girl band of Aqua, Chanel and Dorinda (aka The Cheetah Girls) jet-sets around the world to compete in international dance and singing competitions. The game's debut coincides with the release of The Cheetah Girls One World movie on the Disney channel, and picks up where that movie stops — in India.

This music/rhythm game follows the exploits of The Cheetah Girls as they travel from India to Spain to New York City in search of fame. Players use the touch-sensitive screen of the DS to help the performers sing, dance, and design costumes. The game features five songs from the new movie as well as five other songs from the two previous Cheetah Girls movies.

Start by playing the Story Mode so that you can unlock all the features of the game. The Story Mode is playable on three levels of difficulty, a designation that applies to the minigames within the story.

There are three kinds of minigames: Performance, Cheetah Fashions and Gita Says. Once unlocked, these games are playable separate from the Story Mode.

The Performance games are music/rhythm games, similar to what was first introduced in "Elite Beat Agents," where you tap colored circles in time to the music. For example, while in India, The Cheetah Girls try out to be the opening act for a local Indian band. The girls are shown performing on the lower touch-sensitive screen and as they sing and dance, colored circles with numbers in the center appear on top of the singers. Each circle has a large ring around it that decreases in size until it matches the outline of the circle. If you tap the circle at the moment the ring matches the outline of the circle, you attain the maximum points possible and the singers keep performing. Miss too many of these, and the tryout stops. However, you can repeat the tryout until you succeed.

Cheetah Fashions is a memory game where you are shown an article of clothing and then asked to reproduce it in a limited time period. You select the pattern of clothing, the material and the flair (a small insignia placed on top of the item). For each article you create, you earn it and money to buy other clothing. With the Gita Says minigame, you must memorize dance moves by re-creating them with a sequence of arrows.

In addition to playing the game, players can use the DS to listen to the ten Cheetah Girls songs. If you plug in headphones, you can listen to the songs even when the DS is closed. The game also supports D-Gamer, an online community where you can chat with friends, see the achievements you have unlocked in Disney games, and create an avatar that can be seen by others as you chat.

In the Multiplayer Mode, the Performance minigames can be played cooperatively or competitively using the local wireless capability of the DS. If two friends own copies of the game, they can trade fashions they have made or bought.

While the game's shallow themes of fashion and pursuit of fame may cause some parents concern, the game does encourage players to read the story and two of the three minigames require players to practice memory skills. These minigames appear in variety of formats, are all fun to play and get progressively harder.

If you have a Cheetah Girls fan in your house, this game will be a hit.

Gudmundsen is the editor of Computing With Kids magazine (www.ComputingWithKids.com). Contact her at gnstech@gns.gannett.com.