Even for fans of the movie, High School Musical and all the other High School Musical video games, High School Musical 2: Work This Out! designed for the Nintendo DS, is not one of the best games out there. This Disney Interactive is meant to appeal to girls who love the High School Musical franchise, but just doesn’t seem to cut the mustard. The basic idea behind the game is that characters from the High School Musical movie get summer jobs to pay their way so they can participate in the Star Dazzle talent show. As a gamer, you can take on the personality of Troy, Sharpay, Taylor, Gabrielle, Ryan or even Chad. You can even change characters to complete special tasks throughout the game. The main theme of High School Musical 2: Work This Out! is adventure and exploration, with a couple of rhythm mini-games thrown in. There are many different activities and tasks that you must complete in High School Musical 2: Work This Out! which you will see on the top screen, while on the bottom screen is your map. However, you are never really told how to find something or given any clues. The only way to figure out how to get around the game is to explore, which can get a little annoying after a while. The mini-games are not very difficult or challenging. You are usually given a particular item to retrieve and must roam around trying to find what you need. If your time runs out, you can always start again and at least when that happens you know where not to go. The mini-games are not all retrieval quests, but they are all based on rhythm and clicking something at the right time. The loading time, between areas, actually takes a really long time, so if you are impatient or even slightly bored with this game already, the loading times will probably make you want to chuck your Nintendo DS out the window. When you move through rooms or new areas the game always take several seconds to fade out and then come back into the new area. A lot of other Nintendo DS games are not this slow, so it is hard to understand why High School Musical 2: Work This Out! is. The overall pace of this game is slow. Despite it being a slow moving game, it does have some good graphics, though nothing better than some other games out there. The perspective is a bird’s eye view of everything, which makes it hard to find certain items during your timed tasks. The movement is also jerky much of the time. The best thing about High School Musical 2: Work This Out! is the music, which is pleasant to hear throughout the game. However, don’t expect to hear it right away, you will have to unlock it during game play. Until you do, you get to hear the same two versions of ‘You are the Music in Me’ over and over.