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Singstar 90's
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Graphics & Sound:
Singstar is back again with more karaoke goodness for your PS2. Finally, a collection of hits from the 90's! Now, as long-time players of the Singstar series will know, it's all about the music here and Singstar 90's brings with it a fairly definitive collection of tunes from the decade that ushered in alternative rock and really brought rap to the forefront. Obviously, that is reflected in this collection.
Artists include Nirvana, Soundgarden, Paula Abdul, MC Hammer, Boyz II Men, Arrested Development, En Vogue and the Divinyls, but this is just a smattering of the names you'll see. I do think there are a few songs that are blatantly missing, but I guess it's hard to include everyone's favorites. Hello Sony! Release Singstar for the PS3 already so we can download what we want! But anyway, Counting Crows' "Mr. Jones", Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life" and Ace of Bass' "Don't Turn Around" were glaringly omitted, but hey, maybe next time. That being said, if you dig 90's music, you're bound to find a number of tunes that appeal to you in this collection.
As always, the actual music videos play behind your scrolling lyrics, so it's a nice blast from the past. Although the videos can be somewhat distracting at times, they do provide a really nice backdrop while you are playing. Otherwise, the interface is very clean and simple and the sound effects in between performances are catchy. Do really poorly and you'll earn the title of Hopeful or worse yet, Wannabe. You'll have a rubber ducky as your icon and you'll hear that telling "wah-wah" uh-oh sound that indicates that you suck. Damn. I got this on Arrested Development's "Tennessee". I used to think I knew that song. I was wrong. Do really well and get the Singstar title and you'll hear heavenly trumpets blaring.
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Gameplay:
As I mentioned earlier, predictably there are a number of alternative and rap tunes in this collection. If you aren't familiar with how Singstar handles rap, then you might want to prepare yourself, especially if you are more accustomed to Singstar's nemesis, Karaoke Revolution or even Rock Band these days. For the rap songs, you have a yellow rap meter in the center of the screen that starts off with the marker in the middle. As you do better or worse, the marker moves towards either the left (bad) or right (good) and turns red or green respectively. I found it really tough to do the rap lyrics well, at least as far as the rap meter was concerned. I didn't think I sounded all that bad, but then again, I am a white girl and not MC Hammer for sure.
For those who need a refresher course on Singstar 90's and how it works or have never played the game, here's the run-down. If you've played Singstar before and you already have a profile (I use my PS3, so it's always there waiting for my to play Singstar again), it will automatically ask you if you want to use that profile. All others, just create a new one. You select a song from an available menu of singles or medleys, but they are all there for the choosing - no unlockables here. Once you select your tune, you can decide what difficulty to play, Easy, Medium or Hard, then whether you want to do a Normal song or a Short song, which obviously is simply a shortened version. You might want to do this in a party atmosphere where several folks are playing and you want things to move along quicker.
Then the song begins, with the video playing in the background. You'll have blue bars (and red, if you are singing with another person, either in a Battle or a Duet) and those show what pitch you need to sing in. Try and fill up the bar while staying within it and you will score points. Based on the number of points you earn, you are given a rank, anywhere from Wannabe to Singstar. That's about it.
Modes include Sing Solo, where you just sing by yourself (but with people watching you, of course!), Pass the Mic, which is a party game where you pass the mic around during rounds doing various Singstar challenges, and Freestyle. You can also set up teams and play team challenges which include mini-games like Medleys, Duets, Battle, etc. If someone does an exceptional performance, you can choose to record the song for playback, adding crazy sound effects to the performance. You can even record yourself using the Eye Toy camera.
Do keep in mind that Singstar 90's may not come with the Singstar microphones depending on the version you purchase, so if you don't already have a set, you may need to pick those up. Chances are, if you are reading this, you've played the others and have your mics. |
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Difficulty:
Well, personally, I have always found the Singstar series to be more difficult than other karaoke games on the PS2, at least as far as the strictness in which you are judged. On Karaoke Revolution, for instance, I can regularly score perfect scores on Easy and Medium, but not so with Singstar. And so it goes with Singstar 90's. Depending on which level of difficulty you select, Easy, Medium or Hard, the judging on your pitch and timing becomes more strict. Some of the rap tunes especially are already difficult in and of themselves, so upping the difficulty can be really taxing.
Quite frankly, I have always seen Singstar as more of a party game where you are playing simply for the fun of it and not to achieve the perfect score. With the great tunes present on Singstar 90's, this is sure to be another party hit, so who cares what your score is? There's a good chance you'll be drunk playing it anyway, right? |
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Game Mechanics:
Plug in your microphone. Sing. That's about it. Ok, not really, but sort of. Once you have selected your song, the pitch bars come up. If you don't know the song hands-down, it will be a lot tougher for you because it's not always clear when you are supposed to begin singing. Although there's a little blue gradient that rolls up to the words and that's an indication to start singing, sometimes it goes very quickly so it's not a steady, timed thing. If you have played Karaoke Revolution in the past, you will know what I mean. Once you start singing, you need to match your timing and pitch to the pitch bar in the center of the screen, while watching the words at the bottom of the screen. Remember what I said about really knowing the song? It helps. A lot.
The interface is nice and clean, as I mentioned earlier. You'll see the duration of the song listed at the top of the screen and a little bar which indicates how much of the song you have completed. There's your score, plus a progress bar that you'll want to keep in the green. If you are playing with someone else, their score and bar will be on the right and yours will be on the left. The words are at the bottom and when you are singing with another person, there will be a shadowed indicator to tell you whether Player 1 sings next or Player 2. Or, if you want to be annoying, just sing all the words, whether it is your turn or not. Lastly, as you sing, you'll see phrases stating how well or how poorly you did.
What's important here is the stellar soundtrack that Singstar 90's brings to the table. If you dig karaoke games and love the tunes from the 90's, this is must-have stuff for your collection. |
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
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