Preview by: Brandon “Ice Stadium” Cackowski-Schnell

Based on the cartoon of the same name, Beyblade goes to show you that if you can make a show about spikey haired teens battling with anything you can get kids to buy it. I would not be surprised to see Hoop Warriors: Battle of the Iron Rings coming to Cartoon Network this fall, complete with mythic backstory and full compliment of Battle Hoops for kids to buy. Beyblades are, in a nutshell, tops, but not just any old tops, but tops with various offensive and defensive abilities and, oh yeah, a spirit animal residing within that gives it enormous powers.

The game finds various Beybladers, the men and women who have dedicated their lives to battling with tops, spirited off into a giant beyblade shaped fortress that mysteriously appeared one day. It's up to you and your tops to enter the fortress, find out who or what has been abducting your fellow beybladers and generally kick a lot of bladed top ass. Beybladers go!

The demo I played gave a small taste of the top battling gameplay as well as the scores of customization options available to come up with the most epic of beyblade battles. The game features a wide variety of characters from the show, each with their own beyblade which has its own ratings for attack, defense, speed, etc.

Before the match begins you pick your top's entry point by moving the cursor via your Wiimote and once the announcer gives the go ahead you launch your bey into the match with a flick of the wrist. During the battle, your job is to smash into the other bey to damage them to the point of destruction while at the same time avoiding their attacks. Using a combination of c-stick movements for general movement and the A and B button combined with wrist flicks you can utilize your attack and defensive powers to do additional damage or dodge out of the way of attacks.

These special moves come at the expense of stamina, a special meter of sorts that builds up as you do damage to your opponent. Once you have enough stamina you can unleash your bey's special attack by pressing the A and B button together and shaking the Wiimote like a crazy person. In an interesting twist on the notion of special attacks, each special attack has a designated area of effect in which you have to catch the other bey in order for your attack to be successful. Also, once you start shaking the Wiimote around your opponent can as well to lessen the amount of damage you can do. Overcome their puny flailing and you'll be treated to seeing a unicorn or a bull enter the proceedings and everything is better with rampaging unicorns and a futuristic top battle is no different.

If the disappearance of top beybladers is none of your concern and you want to just get down and dirty with busting tops with your friends or family members the game has a battle mode that supports up to four different players. Any combination of four person battles is supported or, if you don't have any friends to come over and battle, you can have AI opponents sit in either in co-op battles or free for all fights.