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Alvin and the Chipmunks is a chirpy little rhythm game for the Nintendo DS that brings those crazy Chipmunks (Alvin, Simon and Theodore) into the homes of a new generation of young (very young) Chipmunks fans.

Alvin and the Chipmunks and the long-suffering Dave, were originally created by Ross Bagdasarian Sr. in 1958. Just a little side note — if you ever listen to whacky songs and remember "Witch Doctor," Ross wrote that one, too. The very first Chipmunks song was "The Chipmunks Song" which is their Christmas song. The plush figures, fame and fortune all sprung from that well-stream.

I remember enjoying the little Chipmunk voices a lot more when I was younger. My daughter is laughing out loud listening to them, but she has that 7-year-old kid sense of humor. I am not quite as entranced, having the tired mommy sense of humor.

One of the first things I notice is that there are three save game slots. The multiple save slots is always a good idea — especially with a game aimed at younger children. There are three modes of play — quick play, story mode and multiplayer. Unfortunately, you need someone else in range with their own game cartridge, so I did not try that mode. You will have to unlock all but the first song through the story mode before they become available in the quick play mode. For each song, you have three levels of difficulty — easy, medium and hard.

Alvin and the boys apparently begin with a daydream about performing at Rockathonapalooza. Dave (the human guy in the story) tells them they have to work their way through other venues to prove they're worthy of Rockathonapalooza. The boys aren't thrilled, but what can they do? They're too short to drive.

The band begins in a daydream. From there, they move to a prom, a civic center, the forest, a ski resort, a mall gig, a club called The Tree House, the Desert and finally the Rockathonapalooza. I know the graphics changed between the venues, but I couldn't really give you any details. If you're actually playing the game, you're going to be too busy with the touchscreen to have any clue what's going on with the top screen.

The play list is actually not too bad for fitting on a DS cartridge. I liked a majority of the songs. I like them a lot more with the original performers, but the songs were not bad. You'll start with "Video Killed the Radio Star." As you move through your venues, you'll play "Shiny Happy People," "Walking on the Sun," "I'll Never Let You Go," "The Christmas Song," "All the Small Things," "I'm Gonna Be," "Tubthumping," "Rock 'n' Roll High School," "You Really Got Me," "Kids in America," "It's Tricky," "Love Shack," and finally, "I Fought the Law." There are some minor language blips in some of the songs (like hell), but thankfully for the younger crowd, they've adjusted the lyrics in "Tubthumping." (I digress, but I did find it odd that a hit song from a band of anarchists is part of an Alvin and the Chipmunks game. You'd think "game made for kids from movie" with "anthem from anarchists" would make the world implode or something.)

The mechanics of the game are fairly straightforward, though all of the directions are delivered as text with a small picture, so you will need to help younger children know what to do. Basically you have records (yes, vinyl — something the target market for this game has never seen in their lives outside of it being abused as a scratch medium) that drop down across five different tracks. You have to tap the regular records when they're lined up with the little speakers. A blue record with a "tail" is one that you tap and hold for the duration of the tail. The regular records have a few different modes. If the record is red, you're doing a terrible job, and if you don't do better, you will get a "song failed" message, and the song will end. The standard record is black vinyl. As you string together more correct moves in combination, the black vinyl goes to black flaming record (double points), gold flaming record (triple points) and platinum flaming record (quadruple points). At your first missed tap, you drop back to plain black. More misses, and you'll be down in that red zone again.

Whether I'm doing well or bad doesn't appear to affect the graphic performance at all. The records turning red is my only visual clue that I'm blowing it, and the sound of breaking china for every missed record is my audio clue. The Chipmunks rock on, oblivious to my efforts.

Kind of thrown in randomly are these other miscellaneous challenges that will pop up during the song. If you get the scratch challenge, you see a record player, and your job is to rub the stylus on the record as fast as you can to fill the scratch meter. There's a minitap game in which you have between four and six pads (depending on difficulty level) that you have to quickly tap in numeric order. The easiest minigame has to be yelling, "Alvin!" into the DS microphone. The last challenge has you quickly drag a green dot along a melody line. I was not good at that one, but I'm not sure if it was a speed issue or a stylus-control issue.

I think the hardest part of the game was that the records that drop aren't really in sync with the beat of the song. If you try to get into the groove and tap along with the rhythm of the song, you're going to have problems hitting the records at the right moment. It's kind of sad that I could get a better score on some songs with the volume turned off and just following the visual cues. While my daughter loved the little chipmunk voices, she was not successful at the game, even on easy mode. She came back to it a couple of times but told me it was too hard. I know her fine motor coordination isn't always that great with some things, but generally, she is exceptionally good at DS (and PC and Wii) games, so I really have to wonder about her problems with this one. My guess is that she's following the song and isn't seeing that the song and the records don't exactly match.

If your child is a real fan of Alvin and the Chipmunks and has some reasonably good hand-eye coordination and can deal with the disconnect between the beat of the song and the falling records in the game, you might want to give Alvin and the Chipmunks a try. If you just want a rhythm game, there are other options out there. At just under $30, I think you'd need to be a pretty big Chipmunks fan to go with this one.