SingStar

"Sickeningly badly programmed karaoke game for robots and Charlotte Church."

SingStar is a karaoke game. As in, the thing you do with your friends when you're out on a quiet weekday evening and there's nothing else going on in town. The thing that all drunken extroverts dread hearing about the morning after humiliating themselves on stage in front of everyone they've ever met in their entire lives, including their boss, and not even keeping an even pitch whilst doing it. Well, rejoice dear reader, because now you can undergo ritual humiliation in the comfort of your own home! Yes, that's right! You too could have a failed pop career and suffer the degradation of singing other people's songs in backwater clubs. I bet you're so happy, aren't you? I can see the tears of joy streaming from your eyes. Well, those might turn into tears of pain when you play it... although it does have its uses. Onto that later though. For now, embrace your new game and feel the love.

The way the game works is that you accumulate points whilst singing each song by hitting the correct pitch and maintaining the notes for the correct length of time. The lyrics appear on screen along with a prompt showing you the relative pitch of each upcoming note in the form of a bar on the screen, and all this has the backdrop of the original artist's music video. There are thirty tracks to choose from in all, from a variety of genres. The artists range from oldies such as Elvis and Blondie, to last summer's trashy teen pop acts, such as Busted and Good Charlotte. If you can stomach her, there's even Avril Lavigne on there (remember HER?!).

There are a few different game types that you can choose from after connecting one or both of the microphones provided to your PS2 and preparing yourself for hot singing ACTION. Firstly, there's a single player "Quick Song" mode which is good for getting used to the game, or when you just feel like having a quick stress-busting (or raising depending on your perspective) mic-bashing session. This mode is literally exactly what it sounds like. Select a song and sing it for a score. Useful for getting used to the songs and the way the game handles, and mildly entertaining for about four minutes if you're quite drunk.

The Multiplayer mode is really what you'll be looking for if you've invited some friends around for a few drinks and some fun times. Two microphones are provided, so you can all gather round and make some noise until the dogs bark. This is without a doubt the best use for this game. It's friendly to non-gaming friends, unlike many party games, and never really gets old. There are only thirty tracks on the game so it won't keep you going all night, but it'll provide at least a couple of hours of quality entertainment for most people (providing, of course, that they don't take themselves too seriously!).

The obligatory career type single player mode provides limited amusement. Respond to text messages received on your phone, travelling from one backwater club to another singing the same old songs to gain "Buzz Points" and advance through your career. Not an awful lot else to say - it's like doing the Quick Song mode progressively, but with less songs to choose from (not all songs are available in all venues) and with some achingly pretentious filler thrown in for good measure, in the form of a few half-hearted graphics (what's the Seattle Space Needle doing there?) and lots of Bratz-style animation. Nasty.

My biggest complaint about this game comes in the efficiency of recognition of hitting the notes, and the way you have to sing in order to get anywhere. See, you have to be perfectly on pitch at all times. You might think that this is a good aim to have when singing, but you'd be wrong... try it and you'll see what I mean. Sing with perfect pitch and you lose ALL the character, emotion and depth of a song. Constant perfect pitch means you might as well be a robot. That is NOT how real singers sing and it is NOT how you should sing no matter what you're singing for (career or just for fun - what fun is there if you have to remain so rigid?). To its credit, the game recognises the same tone sung in different octaves (basically whether you're singing a song low or high, it reads it the same, which is a good thing in musical terms). But throw in a falsetto or any kind of character, and you LOSE points.

In some cases, this is so bad that it destroys the song you're performing. Perhaps the worst example is "Just A Little" by Liberty X. Sing it the way you do, and you will repeatedly see "Awful!" displayed at the end of each line. Hum it with no character, and you'll get the "Cool!" bonus points. Unforgivably, in this particular song, some of the tones are actually off pitch. That's right - to get the bonus points you need to sing occasional notes out of tune. This particularly applies to the parts of the song performed by the male singers. I have actually tested this out using sheet music and a perfected tuned piano to make sure it wasn't just me, and I was right - the tone is OFF. Crap!

To try to counteract this, there's a "Freestyle" mode which lets you sing the songs with actual style rather than just churning out bland, soulless, even notes. Use falsetto without detracting from your overall score! Perhaps the programmers were feeling guilty about their butchering of some of the songs and included this to allow you to sing properly. As with the "Quick Song" mode, the novelty wears off pretty quickly, but at least you can knock a good tune out without sounding like Charlotte Church.

If you wish to submit to the embarrassment of hearing yourself completely destroy a classic song, or congratulate yourself on giving the angsty teen acts the trashing they deserve, then you will be pleased to hear that after performing each song there is an option to play it back to concentrate fully on hearing every monotonous, solid note of your exquisitely robotic performance. Blissful! More blissful if you hook up your EyeToy and capture your friends drunk on there to play back the next morning or put online.

The appeal in this game is primarily in the novelty of it, but this does wear off quickly. If you have regular parties though, this is a vital game for your collection. I'm afraid it gets the low score because it's just been done so badly. While ever there is no competition for it on the market though, it's an essential purchase by default.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/04