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SingStar Legends
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Graphics & Sound:
Ever notice how some things seem better in theory than in reality, or they simply look better on paper than in real life? Well, that's my best analogy for SingStar Legends. Maybe the dev team thought, "the people want more classic tunes" or maybe they thought that by placing some of these legendary songs available as play options, they could draw an older crowd in. Whatever the case may be, I am just not sure why some of these songs made it onto SingStar Legends.
Ok, so what are these songs I am bagging on? First, the good - Patsy Cline's "Crazy" is a great karaoke song and although I recall it also being on one of the Karaoke Revolution titles, its still a good, classic choice. Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", same story. Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" and Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes" are just fun songs to sing, as is the old classic, "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke. John Lennon's "Imagine" was also an edgy choice that I've never seen on a karaoke game and I really liked that selection. Next, the bad - Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?", Biz Markie's "Just a Friend", and "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5. Not bad songs by any means, no. But not really good karaoke tunes. But then again, I liked some of these songs, but wasn't a hardcore enough fan to know every single note and maybe that's the problem. The ugly? Got to be Tom Jones' "What's New Pussycat." Why is that guy such a tool?
The interface is typical SingStar fare. Very clean, very slick and very easy to read and understand. Behind the songs, you'll see the music videos playing, but wait - some of these songs are from a time before MTV. So SingStar created graphics to play behind the songs. They aren't super-duper, but they suffice. Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" has a flamey look to it and "Crazy" has vintage shots of Ms. Cline, which will be interesting to fans. |
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Gameplay:
Chances are, if you are reading this, it is because you already have a SingStar game and you are jonesin' for some new (or old, in this case) tunes. But if you are new to the SingStar universe, let me catch you up. SingStar Legends is purely a karaoke game and more of a party game than a single player experience. If you want to sing by yourself, there's always the shower. Get friends together and SingStar can turn it into a party. There's no adventure mode, nothing to unlock and no gigs to play. You have a list of songs to choose from and you select your mode and style of play and then sing your heart out.
Your first decision is whether to Sing Solo or with others. If you choose Sing Solo, then you simply select your difficulty and whether you want to sing the normal or short song length, then it's off you go. In a party situation, you have numerous choices. You can try Pass the Mic or Team Games. Within Pass the Mic, you will face rounds of challenges such as Battle, Medley, First to the Post, Duet, Keep It Up, Micro-Medley and Pass the Mic. The challenges range from hitting a certain score, to keeping your performance bar above a certain level, to battling it out with someone else to get the best score on a particular song. Team Games is the same thing, you can just have more players (up to 4 per team) and you form the Red and the Blue teams. Then there's always Freestyle, if you don't want the pressure.
Say you've just had an amazing performance and you want to see it again. Simply save it and hit Playback to watch it again and again. If you are a tweaker, then you can add sound effects to your recording. These can be anything from changing your voice to Barry White deep or making yourself sound like a baby. If you have an Eyetoy camera, you can have yourself performing instead of the music video. Only the most narcissistic need apply. |
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Difficulty:
You can choose whether to perform the song on Easy, Medium or Hard and this will affect how stringently you will be scored. Your ultimate goal is to be ranked as a SingStar, but honestly, what does it matter anyway? This game is all about gettin' stupid and belting it out, so the score is more ancillary than anything else. Some songs will be harder to sing than others, however, and you'll just have to find that out for yourself. Personally, I found the songs that required rapping, like Biz Markie's "Just a Friend," to be really hard. But then I'm a white chick and that could have something to do with it. As for the difficulty scale of people playing the game with you, that depends on how good they are.
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Game Mechanics:
In SingStar Legends, just as in all previous SingStar games, when you select a song, the words will appear at the bottom of the screen and the pitch and timing indicators will appear in the middle of the screen, with the music video playing in the background. The gray bars will show you what pitch you need to utilize to hit the notes. The higher the gray bars on the screen, the higher the pitch. The length of the bars determines how long you need to hold the notes. As you complete song sentences, you'll get scored and the phrase that appears will give you an idea of what SingStar thinks of you. You can pretty much sing any words you want to, as long as they are in time to the music the way the lyrics would be. My dog really loves it when I insert his name into the lyrics and he hears it on the surround sound, but anyway. There's also a performance meter which indicates how you are doing overall, plus how you are currently doing. In other words, green means you are doing well, yellow means so-so and red means you are doing poorly. If you have been doing great all the way through and then start to screw up towards the end, then your bar won't immediately drop to red because you've built up the bar towards the green side. When you begin a song, it starts dead center in the yellow zone, so make every moment count. Handily, there's also a track time counter at the top of the screen, although its insanely pale and sometimes you can barely see it. This tells you how much of the song you have completed and what you have left. Finally, Golden Notes are the really tough ones, either exceptionally long or high notes. When you nail these, they mean extra points for you.
The short and long of a SingStar review is this - should you buy this song pack, which is essentially what each new SingStar PS2 release is. You need to look at the song list and see if these songs are what you are looking for. If so, and you like SingStar's interface, then it's a no-brainer. If you don't like the song list, then stay away from SingStar Legends since there's no downloadable content to be found on the PS2 versions, so what you see is what you get. Here's a cheat sheet song list to help you decide. |
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
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