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71 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Videos but Room for Improvement, April 8, 2007
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
SingStar Pop for the PS2 lets you choose from over 30 different pop songs and sing along with the music videos. The videos are what set this apart from the many other sing-along games for the PS2.
I own and play many of the other game systems, and like this style of gameplay in general. I find it a bit annoying that SingStar makes you buy SingStar specific microphones, and won't work with other standard PS2 microphones, but if you get into the series you could justify the added price since the mics work with the PS2 and PS3 equally. It's a purchase that will last you a system upgrade.
Also, where many other games use replacement singers and not the actual artists - which can lead to results ranging from comical to outright awful - this game involves the real singers, real videos, real images, everything. So if you love singing along to videos, this is perfect.
That really is the main focus of this game. There isn't a career mode, or much of any other 'gaming' aspect. You don't get to choose different arenas. There are no crowds cheering you on. It's just the video playing, you singing along, and the words scrolling by to help you out.
The note bars are very basic. They barely give you a sense of the pitch, and in situations where the singer "warbles", the note line often is a straight line. Also, the game seems to pick up on the actual singer's vocals, so even if you barely sing at all, you get a good rating.
There's a video mode where you can film yourself singing, and then play it back. This is great for aspiring club singers to get a sense of what they look like for an audience, to practice their moves and gestures. This helps the singer both perfect their pitch and vocal range as well as their on-stage expressiveness. You of course need the Eye Toy for this part to work!
I realize I'm an adult gamer, and not a teen, but I wish there was more of a range of songs offered here. Out of the list of songs, there were a handful I really enjoyed and a few others I would sing - but many just weren't of interest to me. I loved the XBox games that let you download tons of content - but here I have to wait for the new PS3 version to come out before I have that ability.
So in the end, if you love the songs on this list, you'll like the game. If you're not that fond of these songs, hold off for the PS3 version and get yourself a PS3. Then you'll be able to download songs and videos for hundreds of songs. Also, I would hope for the PS3 version that they'll improve the actual song-tracking side of the game, to make it similar to the much higher quality abilities of the other karaoke style games.
Song Listing:
3 Doors Down - Kryptonite
A-Ha - Take On Me
ALicia Keys - Fallin
All-American Rejects- Move Along
Ashlee Simpson - Invisible
Avril Lavigne - Sk8er Boi
Blue October - Hate Me
Britney Spears - Baby, One More Time
Cartel - Honestly
Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Daniel Powter - Bad Day
Destiny's Child - Survivor
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc
Hinder - Lips of an Angel
Hoobastank - The Reason
James Blunt - You're Beautiful
Jesse McCartney - Beautiful Soul
Lifehouse - Hanging by a Moment
My Chemical ROmance - Helena
Natasha Bedingfield - These Words
Panic! At The Disco - I Write Sins not Tragedies
Rihanna - SOS
Ryan Cabrera - On the Way Down
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
The Clash - Should I Stay Or Should I Go
The Fray - Over my Head
The Raconteurs - Steady as She Goes
U2 - Vertigo
Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nice song selection, but I wish the songs were in CD quality stereo!, April 7, 2007
Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars
SING A SONG:
I enjoy all of the Karaoke Revolution games (see my American Idol version review, on this website) and decided to try Singstar Pop because this year's songs are some of my favorites. I listened to parts of all the songs in last year's game (Singstar Rocks) on the Singstar website and disliked many of the songs, so I didn't buy it.
It's all just a matter of personal taste though, so if you really liked last year's song selection, chances are you'll only like about five to ten of this year's 30 songs and probably think that they should've added an extra "o" in between the two "p"'s of Pop, to better describe the song selection. I, however, like about 22 of them, especially Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars", or as I often call it, "If I Lay Here".
The game can be played by 1-8 players and both last year's microphones and this year's microphones are exactly the same. Again, they can only be used with Singstar games and thus can't be used with any of the Karaoke Revolution games, nor can the Kar. Revolution microphone be used with the Singstar games.
NOTE: For those of you that already have, or are planning to get a Playstation 3 console in the near future, you should skip this PS2 version and instead buy the PS3 version of Singstar, when it's released sometime near the end of the year. It's the only way you'll then be able to download over 350 music videos to sing along to, whereas PS2 owners will have to settle for just the 30 songs listed below.
The 30 songs included in Singstar Pop (U.S. version) are:
3 Doors Down "Kryptonite"
A-Ha "Take On Me"
Alicia Keys "Fallin'"
All American Rejects "Move Along"
Ashlee Simpson "Invisible"
Avril Lavigne "Sk8er Boi"
Blue October "Hate Me" (EDITED)
Britney Spears "...Baby One More Time"
Cartel "Honestly"
Cyndi Lauper "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"
Daniel Powter "Bad Day"
Destiny's Child "Survivor"
Franz Ferdinand "Take Me Out"
Gorillaz "Feel Good, Inc." (EDITED)
Hinder "Lips of an Angel"
Hoobastank "The Reason"
James Blunt "You're Beautiful"
Jesse McCartney "Beautiful Soul"
Lifehouse "Hanging By A Moment"
My Chemical Romance "Helena"
Natasha Bedingfield "These Words"
Panic! At the Disco "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies" (EDITED)
Rihanna "SOS"
Ryan Cabrera "On The Way Down"
Snow Patrol "Chasing Cars"
The Clash "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
The Fray "Over My Head"
The Raconteurs "Steady, As She Goes"
U2 "Vertigo"
Whitney Houston "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"
Only three of the music videos have swear or drug related words that are either glitched or edited out. They are: Blue October's "Hate Me"; Panic at the Disco's "I Hate Sins Not Tragedies" and the Gorillaz "Feel Good Inc." (Note: Since James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" uses the video with the words "FLYING high" in the lyrics, rather than the cd version's "bad F" word, there was no need to do any censoring for this music video.)
There is nothing to unlock in the game so right away you get all 30 of the widescreen, real artist music videos that are used seamlessly in the game. The loading is also super fast! Once you pick a song, you can start singing it within five seconds or so. Very nice!
In addition to the 30 songs, you can choose from six different song medleys. They are as follows: Random; Pop Chicks; Pop Dudes; All American Indie; International Hits and Party On. Each of the specific medleys always include the same five songs (except for Random, of course). For example, the Pop Chick medley (2:30 in length) always includes "Survivor", "These Words Are My Own", "Invisible", "Fallin'" and "Baby One More Time". It's done this way since your high scores are also saved for each of these medlys (except for Random).
Unfortunately, after turning on my stereo and hearing no sound coming from my two rear surround speakers except for a bit of my own voice, I realized that ALL the songs sound like either very poor stereo or even mono recordings. They're obviously not encoded with any simulated surround cabability like all the amazing cd quality sounding songs of the Karaoke Revolution games are. If the Singstar songs were of cd quality I would have given the game 4 stars because I still enjoy it and do find it to be a refreshing change (from Kar. Rev.) to hear the real artists and see the actual music videos.
If you just use your Tv set to listen to the songs you won't notice any problem with the still clear sound quality of each song. Although, I decided to use my discman head phones (plugged into my stereo) while playing the game so that at least it's easier to escape into these less than cd quality sounding songs. I found that my scores are better in both Singstar and Kar. Rev. whenever I use my head phones anyway, and I feel more involved with the songs this way.
GAMEPLAY:
Although you can't shut off the real singer's voice while you sing (unless you use the eyetoy), you can however, use the L1 and L2 buttons to raise and lower the microphone volume so that it's easy to still hear your voice. What's even cooler is that you can playback the song you just sung and either pause, FF or Rewind it, at any time, as well as saving it to a memory card (uses about 550-700 MB per song).
On playback, you only see the music video and not your score or note bars to see where you went wrong but it's still an amazing feature even with some occasional, mostly minor, distortion that might occur. You can even add sound effects like making yourself sound like a robot or a baby on helium,add vibrato or reverb and alter or remove them at ANY time.
The game plays very much the same way as Kar. Rev. except that the lyrics don't scroll across the screen from left to right but rather stay in the middle (underneath the video) and a blue bar slowly approaches the lyrics to let you know when to start singing. In Singstar, the scoring method seems a bit more complicated and I'm not a fan of the extra Rap meter that briefly appears during a rap sequence in some songs.
However, I do really like the way your blue pitch notes (or red ones for player 2) stay on the screen for the entire phrase, so it's easier to see where your pitch was, and how far from the desired pitch you were, at a specific point in that phrase. You can even see the gaps where you incorrectly stopped singing. It's all nicely done and adds to the overall experience. Also, if you sing a phrase close enough to perfect you'll see the word "Cool" appear, which is equivalent to Kar. Rev.'s, "Great" rating.
You can play without being scored in the "Freestyle" mode (for 1-2 players) and you can even remove the note bars if you don't want the videos to be cluttered with them. However, the lyrics underneath the video can't be removed.
The game will also save your various high scores (even your medly scores-except for Random medly). It will show the difficulty level and whether you sang the short or normal versions of the song, but it doesn't show you the dates you set them on or the cute name ranking you got with your score, such as: Amateur,Wannabe, Hopeful, Lead Singer, Rising Star, Superstar or Singstar.
There are three difficulty levels, but even on the easiest level, it's tough to improve your score once you get into the 9,000 point range (perhaps 10,000 is the top score?) because even if you miss just a few notes per phrase it will seriously keep you from improving. It's easier in Kar. Rev to improve scores because they range on average from 10,000 to 50,000 points, with some big swings possible as you improve.
With Singstar however, after just one week of playing, the odds of improving your best score would most likely be very small. Still, I love singing "Chasing Cars", even in mono, so it's still something I'll play every month most likely and if you like singing karaoke and already have played Kar. Revolution, you might as well at least rent this to see if you're okay with the less than cd quality of the songs.
Yes, you can play this game by yourself (in "Sing Solo" mode), but because it has no career mode, you'll most likely also end up playing in "Party" mode (for 2-8 players). You'll get the same kind of choices as in the Karaoke Rev. games such as: Battle, Medley, Duet, First to Post (first one to get to specific point total wins), Keep it Up (must keep performance bar above the marker or song ends) etc.
Obviously, the real replay value for most people will be in the playing against others, so go ahead and Party On!
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not a bad game overall, April 12, 2007
Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars
If you judge this game on its own merits without comparing it to the Karaoke Revolution series it is decent entertaiment. I have most of the KR games and they are superior, but if you are tired of singing those songs and are itching for the next installment this should keep you busy for a while. It's biggest drawback is the setlist. There simply are not enough songs. Second, the fact that it requires you to buy the mics to play it is a waste of money for those of us that already have mics from the KR games. I will say though that the mics are good quality - kind of heavy and very sensitive. I read some reviews where some folks didn't like it that you could not turn down the vocals on the game - you have to sing with/over the original artist. If you are used to KR then that sounds like a drawback but on this game, trust me, you WILL hear your voice. Maybe more than you want to. KR can make someone sound better than they really do (thank the Lord for that blessed little arrow), but this game shows no such mercy. God help you if you are a mediocre singer (like myself) because you can score high but have every dog in the area headed for your house at the same time. And for the love of everything right and holy DO NOT try to listen to your performance through the playback song option. If you are a good singer it would probably interest you, but if you are like me and MUST have the "bar" to stay on key that playback feature is just a cruel tragedy. The game is also sorely lacking in the area of repeat gameplay attraction since you don't unlock any bonus material and even though you get a score at the end of the song no max score is specified so you don't have a goal to shoot for. When you re-sing you're just trying to beat your own high score. If you love KR I recommend asking yourself the question "just how bored am I really?" before buying this game. However if you are looking for a game that's more like true karaoke than a video game I think you will enjoy this.
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