Monday, December 12, 2011

Rockin’ the 70’s with ABBA!

143564 I lived through the 70’s (all but the first 2 1/2 months of  them, to be exact)! While I would definitely choose 80’s music over 70’s, there are definitely a few 70’s bands that I’m loyal too – one of which is ABBA.  So, when the opportunity to try the ABBA You Can Dance Wii game came my way, I jumped at the chance.  I knew my kids would love the game itself, and I would love the music – a win-win situation, right?

We decided that in order to properly “break in” this game, we should have a dance party at our house.  Turns out, that we (a) picked the wrong night, and (b) don’t have many crazy friends.  But, thankfully, we do have one crazy friend who was actually able to come to the party on the scheduled date – so we went ahead with it.  As is often the case, it only takes a few crazy  people in a room to have a TON of fun – and that’s exactly what we did.

abba party 036 To get started, we made way too much food! A couple types of dips, crackers, beer bread, cocktail weinies (which were  a party staple in the 70’s), punch, and chocolate-covered pretzel rods were on the party menu.  I think the weinies were the collective favorite – I actually just chopped up regular hotdogs and threw them in the crockpot with a mixture of ketchup, brown sugar, and (the secret ingredient) some grape soda (that just so happened to be sitting on the counter when I was mixing up the sauce!)  Yum!

After eating, we were ready for dancing.  I went up against Brian, Ashley challenged me, Gracie challenged Ashley, Ian challenged Gracie, and we all took a round with our guest – another Brian.  Needless to say, there was a whole lot of laughing going on!

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We tried to be as authentic 70’s as possible, so we added a disco ball to our living room, and  broke out our old lava lamp.

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For the sake of the 70’s, I even parted my hair down the middle and tried to make it flat (no success there).  We saw the lovely ladies of ABBA sporting big flowers in their hair (which just so happen to be back in style), so Ashley and I added a flower to our hair as well.  Ashley broke out one of our new tie-dye Mickey shirts, while Gracie pulled out one of her favorite retro tees for the event.

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Now, enough about us!  Here’s a bit about ABBA You Can Dance:

From the creators of the award-winning Just Dance® franchise comes ABBA You Can Dance. Featuring 26 timeless songs, including “Dancing Queen,” “Mamma Mia,” “Fernando,” “Waterloo,” and “Take A Chance On Me,” ABBA You Can Dance invites you to unleash your inner dancing queen and hit the dance floor with one of world’s biggest music sensations. Dance with up to four players or join in on vocals; ABBA You Can Dance is unforgettable fun for friends and family of every generation.

KEY FEATURES

abba_ss1 *The Timeless Music of ABBA
Enjoy all the hits – 26 in all – from ABBA’s rich catalog of classic songs, now digitally remastered for Wii™ and your home entertainment system.

*You Can Dance
Unleash your inner dancing queen and play for fun or to set a new top score to challenge yourself and others. Play any way you want with up to four friends.

abba_ss3 *Mini-Musical
Perform a story through the music of ABBA! Experience the magic as you play a role in a mini-musical of ABBA’s songs.

*Karaoke Mode
Up to two additional friends can join in on vocals. Simply follow along with the on-screen lyrics.*

*A Must-Have for Fans
Get immersed in the amazing world of ABBA with authentic content including their music videos, live concert footage, and classic photos!

*Wii-compatible microphone required, sold separately.

And here are our thoughts on it:

“I think that ABBA You Can Dance is a great game for multi-generational playing! After all, we had people from 5 – 45 playing the game, and everyone was laughing, singing, dancing, and having a blast!  My favorite song to dance to (and I’m pretty good at it, if I do say so myself) is Knowing Me, Knowing You.  My only issue with this game is that the karaoke portion of the game is not scored – it’s really ‘just for fun’.  I’d much prefer the scoring on the singing, as that’s more my area of expertise!  Anyway, all in all, I’d definitely recommend this game – especially if you were/are an ABBA fan, and you like to have fun!” ~Heidi

“I think this game is cool.  It’s fun for all ages. My favorite song to dance to is Fernando (I currently have the high score for this song!)  I also like Does Your Mother Know. As for the karaoke portion of the  game, Mama Mia is probably my favorite. We already had the ABBA GOLD cd, so I knew a lot of the songs; but some of them were knew to us. I think we’ll have lots more fun playing this game in the future.” ~Ashley, age 18

“I like ABBA You Can Dance. We already had a Grease game that you could sing and dance along with, but I think I like this new ABBA game better. My favorite song to dance  to?  Really any one that I can beat Ashley on (I’m the competitive one!) I would recommend this game to anyone who likes the 70’s!” ~Gracie, age 11

“The ABBA game and the ABBA party were  fun. I wish I could beat Gracie and Ash at the games.  And mom. I need to practice more. I think people should buy this game because it’s fun and it makes me laugh.” ~Ian, age 5

If you’d like to add ABBA You Can Dance to your Wii game collection (so that you can have as much fun as we have), you can do so by purchasing the game at Amazon.com or Toys ‘R Us. Both these sites sell the game for $39.99.

NOTE: Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this blog post. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

2 comments:

Capturing Magical Memories said...

I love ABBA and am proud to say so! Looks like you guys had a lot of fun.  Thanks for sharing.

Dizdutch said...

Love your creativity on ABBA night

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