SingStar ABBA!
Score: 79% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment America Developer: London Studio Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 8 Genre: Rhythm/ Party/ Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: Wow, ABBA. Really? ABBA? Personally, I don't understand it, but there you have it. An entire SingStar devoted to the Swedish sensation from the 70's. SingStar: ABBA contains 20 songs spanning from the early years of the band's career to their disco phenomenon. Since I am not a big ABBA aficionado, I checked Wikipedia and it seems like the band has plenty more songs than the 20 featured on the game, but for some reason, they only included the 20. It seems to me that if you are a big enough ABBA fan to want to sing their music and only their music, that you'd want as much ABBA as you could get. ABBA was all about the harmonies and those can definitely be found here, along with plenty of disco cheesiness. "Dancing Queen" is not something I didn't hear on a regular basis in my childhood, but I don't want to hear it for pleasure, personally. "Fernando" is a beautiful song, but again, what do a bunch of folks from Sweden know about crossing the Rio Grande to freedom? But anyway, "Take a Chance On Me" and "Mamma Mia!" also make appearances, along with a number of other songs including hits like "SOS" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You." If you want ABBA, then yuo have come to the right place. In the background for each song plays a music video, which struck me as odd since a lot of these songs came out well before MTV. The quality of the video is really poor, but again, you have to consider the timeframe. I would have thought they would have cleaned them up a little, but they didn't for the PS3 version, so I guess its no surprise that the PS2 wouldn't have any cleanup either. If you are in the mood for some nostalgia from the golden age of disco, you'll surely find it here.
Gameplay: SingStar: ABBA plays exactly like every other SingStar did before it. You choose the ABBA song you want to sing from a palette of 20 such songs, plus a selection of ABBA medleys, select whether to play the song on Normal length or Short length, then select your level of difficulty, and you're off to it. You can Sing Solo, team up with a group for party rounds or just play Freestyle if you don't want to have to worry about the score hanging over your head. When you play the team-based games, you can have up to 8 players involved. The rounds include Battle, Medley, First to the Post, Duet, Keep It Up, Micro-Medley and Pass the Mic and can include anything from singing a bunch of portions of songs to trying to keep your performance bar at a certain height to trying to reach a set number of points before the other team. If you have an EyeToy camera, you can also watch yourself singing instead of the standard video. When you playback your performance, you'll also have the option to add all kinds of wacky sound effects to alter it. Want to sing like Barry White? You can do that!
Difficulty: In SingStar: ABBA, just as with all SingStar games, you can choose Easy, Medium or Hard for each song you decide to play, so if you find things are tough, relief is only a button press away. Depending on which level of difficulty you select, you will be judged more strictly or leniently and you will be required to be more precise on your pitch and timing. Personally, I think singing disco tunes is pretty tough in and of itself, not to mention watching the weird things ABBA likes to do with mirrors.
Game Mechanics: As in all karaoke-based games, your goal in SingStar: ABBA is to sing ABBA tunes and sing them well. You'll want to match their timing and pitch as closely as possible. The closer you are, the more points you score. Sometimes, you'll see glowing pitch bars called Golden Notes. If you slam dunk these bars, you'll earn even more points because these are really long or high notes. If you are using your EyeToy camera, you can record the Golden Notes Moments for later playback. Depending on how well you do, you'll get a phrase rank after the end of each sentence. There's also a Performance Meter so you can visually gauge how well overall you are doing. One new addition that really pleased me was the Track Time indicator. This little clock is a visual guide to how much longer the song has and has really been needed for a long time.SingStar: ABBA is a 70's song pack for your SingStar collection. If you are a huge ABBA fan (and if you are and I know you, don't ever call me again :P), then you'll want to pick this collection of tunes up. However, if you have a PS3 and love ABBA, you may want to snag the PS3 version because it has more songs on it.
-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins
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