The basic concept of We Cheer 2 remains unchanged from the original. You perform choreographed cheerleading moves with your Wiimote, following the on-screen cues. There are 30 new tracks to dance to, which includes great tracks like Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" and "Push It" by Salt'n'Pepa, but unfortunately leans towards the Disney end of things with tunes from Miley Cyrus, Vanessa Hudgens and Corbin Blue. On the plus side, they do give 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready For This" so you can recreate your Bring It On fantasies. Oh, and while you'd think that Toni Basil's "Mickey" would be the most awesome song to perform to, I have to admit that "Pon de Replay" had the best routine. I thought it was a lame choice of a Rihanna song to include, but it turned out to have the most fun choreography. Go figure!

The biggest change from the original is the addition of male cheerleaders. And they're just as customizable as the girls. The graphics are much improved, and everything from the characters and backgrounds all the way to the menus just has a more refined appearance than the original. Even the on-screen cheerleading animations are more complex and realistic. Well, actually, the biggest change is probably the adjusted difficulty. Whereas in the first We Cheer, the controls made it so difficult to pass a song on easy that even attempting an advanced difficulty seemed crazy. But now, the easy level is actually easy, and the intermediate is even doable to the point where advanced is just difficult enough to pose a real challenge. This makes We Cheer 2 more fun than frustrating, something the original unfortunately lacked.

Workout mode makes a return, but while they've added some more variety to the routines (and Panda from the Tekken series makes a surreal guest appearance), my problem with this mode still remains. The choreography is simply too difficult and fast to make for an effective workout. You'll be flailing around so much that you won't really feel like you're doing any good at all. There's also some multiplayer added in, but the various balloon modes feel tacked on and not as fun as simply competing against your friends in a regular cheer-off to the normal routine.

There's a Squad Challenge mode that tries to tack on a vague storyline but you still get to choose your song and difficulty, so it's actually more fun to simply play the regular game so you don't have to sit through the little cut scenes and dialogue. It doesn't really add anything to the gameplay, unfortunately. There's a little bit of replay value in attempting to unlock everything. Songs come pretty quickly as you earn Cheer Points for successfully completing routines, and then later you can use your points to buy new outfits for your squad. Of course, if you're not that into customizing your cheerleaders, your replay value will hinge on how many times you're willing to repeat the routines to the same songs trying to beat your high score. Oh, and the customization menus are a wee bit unintuitive. They give you the ability to customize the shades of colors, but it's kind of annoying to pull off. I had trouble making blue jeans!

We Cheer 2 does everything better than the original, with better graphics and animation topped off with refined controls. While you might think that this game would be a prime candidate for Wii Motion Plus Controls, a rep for Namco Bandai admitted that would have made the game too picky, and they wanted to go in the other direction, loosening up the controls to make it more fun. And it turns out that was exactly the right call. If you don't mind flailing your arms around and looking a little silly in the privacy of your own home, We Cheer 2 is terrific fun!

8 out of 10