Show of hands who played this game. Come on, ‘fess up. I know you’re out there, feeling slightly ashamed with yourself for even touching the case. Some of you have excuses. Maybe you have a little girl, and she wouldn’t shut up until you bought it for her. Fair enough. Perhaps you merely rented it to boost your Gamerscore. I can accept that, don’t worry. Anyone left who bought it because they thought it might be a good game? If there is, feel free to go outside and play with traffic. In the meantime, I’ll review Hannah Montana: The Movie (The Game, or, as swaggers put it, The Experience!)

Where to start with this monstrosity. I dunno, how about story. Or, the lack thereof. You take control of Miley Stewart, a young girl from Tennessee who’s a sweet country girl at heart, but lives the high life as her alter ego, Hannah Montana. Through a series of badly presented and short-lived plot points, Miley ends up back home in the country, trying to save Crowley Meadow from being turned into another American concrete jungle after Mister Crowley died and left the town to the people. As you do.

When playing as Miley, your aim is to follow the on screen arrow to the next person you need to speak with, talking with them, then moving on to either talk to someone else or pick up an object that person needed. Or, in some cases, go shopping. Yes, many objectives within the game actually require you to go shopping. I really, really wish I was joking. When you’re not walking at a glacial pace around the same five locations, you end up in a daydream sequence where you must perform as Hannah herself, dancing along to songs found within the film and TV series. These sequences require you to follow the most unintuitive motions on the two analog sticks ever designed, and at some moments “playing” the guitar, drums or keyboard, or singing. It’s like a collection of mini-games thrown into one mini-game, so it all feels a bit jumbled and mismatched, and doesn’t make for interesting gameplay.

The graphics can only be described as disastrous. The pile of polygons that represent Miley/Hannah make both characters look ugly and stupid, and since she’s supposed to be some sexy rock chick, it really kind of ruins that side of the game. The rest of the characters all look basically the same, and the environments they’re placed in are dull. Animations are often jerky and badly done, and even the 2D graphics are fuzzy around the edges, which is just so lazy it’s untrue. It feels like it was rushed out faster than I was from this joke that I completely failed at thinking up.

At least the sound’s okay though, right? Uh, no. If you can stand the pop noises that are formed by the performances, with every song mentioning love or being yourself or some other stupid message for the kids, then you have to put up with some really dodgy voice acting. Seriously, it’s as if they caught the actors on set and recorded it with a Dictaphone. If the characters try to display any kind of emotion, the sounds crackle and get distorted, which is just the definition of amateur. And even if it wasn’t recorded badly, the performances are so badly done, it’s like one guy got told to put on a Texan accent and voice every single character. The background music is so quiet it’s barely noticeable, but this may well be a mercy on us, since it’s the same piece of guitar looping every 15 seconds.

So, what have we learned from this experience? I think we can all take something from this. Developers, just because it’s a guaranteed success in the tween girl market, it doesn’t excuse you from rushing out pieces of crap. Swaggers, you are clearly a man of great talent if you can stomach filming yourself playing this… thing. And everyone else reading? Don’t buy this game.

Maybe rent it. Ya know. For the achievements.

Score: 2/10

(Interested in seeing the guide? Click here!)

Actually, seriously thought it was good? Big fan of Miley Cyrus? Let us know in the comments!