Wii Music is a tough game to review. It’s a strange mishmash of beginner music lessons, ugly MIDI sound samples and shallow multiplayer games, aimed squarely at the toddler to grandpa “everyone’s a gamer” set. It’s a fun experience if you get into the right mindset, and much deeper than it first appears, but it can’t even begin to compete with prettier, snazzier games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

Let me start by saying that I have very little real world music experience, save for a stint in college where I bought a guitar and took a few lessons. I think just about every suburban college kid does that, so I’ll count my musical experience somewhere between "complete moron" and "able to play in a three-chord punk band"; so if anyone needs a little music theory 101, it’s me.

Does the game deliver? Well, yes... sort of. There’s certainly no lack of options. There’s Jam mode where you can gather some friends and wave Wii-motes around, sort of making music, there’s a video mode where you can record those sessions, there are "games", a very cool drum simulator and finally, there are lessons. Once you have spent enough time learning the basics of the instruments (of which there are about 50, including a barking dog suit), and have made three or so music videos a new suite of "Jam Mastery" lessons open up, inviting you to learn the ins and outs of building songs, layer by layer. Several musical styles are up for virtual mastery, including Rock, Pop, March, Jazz, Classical, Hawaiian, Reggae, Latin, Tango, Japanese and Electronic.

One of the meatiest sections of the game is the "games" section. In it, you will find Wii Maestro, Handbell Harmony and Pitch Perfect – and each offers some serious challenges and even... gasp – fun for more advanced players.

Wii Maestro is exactly like the early build we all saw back at E3 2006, when the Wii was just an apple in Nintendo’s eye. You conduct an orchestra to popular songs (they start easy, then get quite hard), testing your ability to match the pace and energy of a song.