SingStar review (PS2)

I purchased SingStar myself, which for a games reviewer is often a strange occurrence. Before you all judge me, I should explain that it seemed like a great party game for a BBQ that was taking place at a friend’s house. Naturally, I brought along the game, all of the peripherals and a large bag of sausages to cook. It was a big success, the game went down a treat (not just because of the free flowing alcohol), yet days later I’m still playing it at home, on my own. Now you can judge me.

SingStar takes the premise that everyone enjoys singing along to music and sometimes a little too much, but this is more than a karaoke selection for your PS2, as it uses ‘special SingStar technology’ to judge how well you’re singing and rates you accordingly. The game (which ranges in price from around £30 to £40 depending on where you get it) is accompanied by two rather sturdy and impressive feeling microphones which plug into another box that then takes up one of your USB slots on the front of the console. Once you’ve carried out the entirely uncomplicated plugging in phase and placed the game disk into your machine the fun can start.

S-Club… Why did I sing S-Club?

A number of ways of playing present themselves to you immediately. A simple ‘choose a song and sing’ option starts you off where you can sing along with one of the thirty varied and rather great (for karaoke) licensed tracks available to you. Elvis, Busted, The Village People, Dido, Motorhead, Westlife, Avril Lavigne and even The Darkness (I challenge you to sing that high) each contribute a well known song to the repertoire and all others are equally as recognisable.

A friend can join in with a duet mode that gives you each a microphone and rates the combination of both of you singing to give a final score or the battle mode whereby you each get your own score depending on how well you’ve stuck to the correct pitch, timing and rhythm. Even skilled singers will have trouble getting a full score, even when knowing the tune, which is helpfully represented onscreen with coloured bars that go up and down depending on the pitch. Particularly tricky notes to hit shine gold and give you bonus points for getting them, while further bonuses can be achieved by managing an entire line of bars without mistakes. The scoring system seems quite simple, but rates you from 0 to 10,000 amazingly fairly.

Eye Spy

As the first non-EyeToy game to support the Eye Toy in an optional manner (you won’t miss too much by not having one), SingStar allows you to plug in your Eye Toy and watch yourself performing. When you hit the gold notes, the camera records video of you to be played back later if you so desire. Once the song is finished, a playback mode allows you to listen to yourself singing (and alter your volume if you were a little too loud or quiet) with the music video of the song playing in the background, only to be interrupted by the Eye Toy captured sequences at various stages. Your singing can be made into a chipmunk style, or even lowered an octave to give a bassy deep effect instead. The original vocals can then be removed to leave you with a version of the song sung just by you, which can be saved to memory card for around 500-900KB of space, depending on the length of the song.

Star Maker Mode

My favourite mode for whiling away the wee hours on my own is the aptly named Star Maker mode, that serves as a career building session. Starting out and trying to make a name for yourself, you must build up your popularity by singing in various clubs. To begin with, you will have one place to sing at, and six songs to choose there. If you perform well enough, other club owners will request you sing for them and eventually a record company will become interested enough to request you record a single (with B side of course) which then enters the charts, hopefully going to number one. As your career progresses, you will be asked to sing at awards shows (that you hopefully will have won an award at) and even gain a sell out crowd at the most exclusive club in Harmony City.

It’s all a bit of fun and helps you practise for the next time your friends come over. Naturally I was required to play this mode to review it, so I have an excuse for singing my heart out in the privacy of my own room (though my flatmates can’t have got the right idea), but it’s still a remarkably enjoyable way to pass the time, even without any reason other than to sing behind it. It does seem to have a rather long loading time though (even more than a regular one-off battle) considering the complexity of the game.

The BBQ

Without a doubt, singing with other people is the best way to play the game and at the aforementioned barbeque there were eight people wanting to join in. Party games mode allowed us to create two teams of four and have the PS2 randomly choose people to take part in varied game modes against each other, finally crowning a winning team after seven intense rounds. You may be required to sing in a vocal battle against an opponent, sing a solo against the other team, a duet against the other team or even try and last the longest without screwing up. The finale takes place in a pass-the-mic situation, whereby all members must stand up and follow the onscreen instructions to change the singer at a moments notice.

We ended up with everyone singing the Y.M.C.A. in an event that wouldn’t look out of place in a mental institute, yet was probably the highlight of the evening (if you don’t count the awesome pasta salad and homemade burgers). The mere fact that everyone was inspired to join in (for two full games and lots of single challenges) shows that the game is addictive and intensely fun to play.

The Dark Side of the Farce

While everything seems to work fine, there are a few aspects that are slightly disappointing. Our expert singer, who was clearly better than anyone else at the microphone was consistently beaten by me. Certainly I don’t have any complaints and I like to think that I can sing reasonably well, but the problem lay in the fact that the game doesn’t positively acknowledge harmony or any kind of singing other than the pre-designed tunes. This wouldn’t be a problem if it was totally accurate to the way in which it was originally sung, but certain songs seem to have slightly different tunes (perhaps to avoid overcomplicating the challenges) to how we are used to hearing them. While I managed to stick to these simplified versions, our grade eight singing friend, who was probably singing better than me, was penalised for her accuracy.

The only other problem lay with a friend of mine who is by his own admission, musically challenged. While he was an awesome sport for getting involved and freely admitted that he wasn’t going to become the next Pavarotti, the messages flashing on screen for him (such as Awful and Tone Deaf) could have been nicer, considering his willingness to take part. Very small problems in the grand scheme of things considering how well the game brings karaoke into the living room and gives a purpose to singing on your own. I am certain that I will be asked to bring it next time, and with the EyeToy it ranks as one of the absolute best party games available. I just wonder why it kept choosing Y.M.C.A. for me to sing.