If you're ready to soar through the air as a human cannonball, perform with magnificent Bengal tigers, defy gravity on a motorcycle in the Spherical Miracle, dazzle the crowds with an exotic Asian elephant... they you're ready for the fun and thrill that can only be experienced at Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey...

It's My Circus is a collection of Wii minigames which make use of the Wii controller and nunchuk. If you have a Wii balance board you also have the option to use that on a very few games.

The main menu allows you to chose from a number of circus tents. These include things like Stunts (ride a motorcycle in the Spherical Miracle to collect stars, or perform an escapology act); Clowns (play clown 10 pin bowling or have a pie throwing race in an old West town); Trapeze (swing above the crowds and perform as many somersaults in the air as possible); or Animals (try and get five tigers to perform for the crowd). These are just a small selection of some of the games that can be played.

The idea is simple, practise each game until you become good enough at it to be awarded five stars in that activity. The more stars you are awarded the more items (to customise your character) and cash (to be redeemed for gifts in the gift store) you unlock. You also unlock new titles and once you achieve a certain title it unlock one of the two big tops for you. Each of the two big tops has a small and large show. Once you've unlocked these you can perform, in front of an audience, a selection of the activities you've been practising.

The biggest issue with this game is that a few (but only a few) of the minigames don't work quite as well as they could. For example, the human cannonball game is pretty hit and miss whether you raise the cannon too high or not high enough. And the tightrope never quite works as well as it should using the controller rather than the balance board.

As well as the single player game, you can also challenge members of your family at different minigames.

There's quite a lot of longevity here - and once you master some of the games, the added bonus of being able to perform random games in a circus arena does add more fun.

7

Darren Rea