SingStar Rocks!
Sony brings the EU superhit over the pond. But how does it fare with a US track list?
Published: December 10, 2006
Way, way too often, we Americans like to think that we're the core of the video games industry. Yes, the Japanese market is the home base for two of the big three console providers, but people tend forget that there's a bigger market out there. Way bigger. In terms of regions, the European market is absolutely stupid huge, it's not just Europe, it's the Australia and New Zealand, and, well, just about everything else Sony can cram into the non-US, non-JP, non-Asian territories.
That's not short-changing anyone in the EU group (though I'm sure I've already pissed off countless folks with that painfully basic breakdown), I'm just headed toward the whole notion that games are birthed from more than just the US and Japan. Case in point: the EyeToy, which has enjoyed an absolutely stupid amount of success overseas while it hasn't really made the same splash here. Likewise, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's SingStar series is an incredible hit across the pond, but hasn't made a dent here. Of course, there's a very good reason for that: the game never got the greenlight for a Stateside release. Obviously, that has changed.
Though the game is certainly a karaoke game, don't confuse it with something like developer Harmonix's Karaoke Revolution series. Yes, they're both singing games, but SCEE has gleefully approached the whole idea that SingStar Rocks! is a party game and a social experience; the EyeToy (not surprisingly), is fully supported here and used to capture images of you and your friends getting tanked and screaming in falsetto along with Jack White.
And really, that's all there is to the experience. Your friends (and the amount of booze they happen to pound) will have almost as much to do with the overall experience as the track listing, because SingStar, while peppered with some near-universal hits like "Rocketman" and "I Will Survive," can really only hold its own for a few solo sing-throughs of the 30-something strong tracks that come with the game.
That's not a slight against what's been assembled here, it's just that SingStar isn't really a solo game. If you don't have a bunch of inebriated folks around (hey, they can be high on life if that's your thing), there isn't quite as much reason to keep going. Studio London, the development house that also had a hand in those surprisingly enjoyable EyeToy games, tried to introduce as many options as possible into the mix, adding in a handful of medleys that mash a few songs together, but for the most part handing off the mics is the key. Hell, the fact that the game comes in a blister pack with two microphones right from the start should tell you something about the approach Sony is trying to take here.
Though the core system is the same (i.e. sing in tune with the song), there are a few differences between how SingStar's brand of karaoke works. For starters, you need to know the song. This is, as those Time-Life commercials have famously touted, the original song by the original artist. In fact, they play the original music video in the background behind the main screen. There are no covers here, and because you're graded not just on pitch but on timing, you actually have to know how the song is sung just as much as the melody. No more humming a long, continuous note to get through the parts that you don't know.
Luckily, you have the option of watching any of the videos with subtitles to help you learn things (since, again, it pays to actually know how the song is sung). It's here that the quality of the video really shines through. Even older tracks like Gloria Gaynor's roller rink anthem aren't plagued by significant compression, though obviously it's not terribly clean due to how old the original video was. Given that a lot of the videos enjoy having some dark blacks and vibrant colors, the fact that more than 30 videos are crammed onto a single-layer DVD is still impressive.
Also worth noting is the interface. UK design at its finest, SingStar's menus are clean, ultra-simple and incredibly elegant. Usually no more than two or three colors, the interface is rife with beveled edges and straight lines. It's the kind of clean, effortless design that I completely adore, so it's no surprise I was hooked.
The audio quality, too, is quite strong. Using the shoulder buttons, you can bump up the mic level at any time to either help your warbling or wash it out with the actual vocals, but if you do allow the original vocals to punch through, you're in for a clean, hi-fi aural experience, particularly if you have a decent receiver and surround system that can push some of the music to the back channels.
In the end, though, it all comes down to the songs, and SingStar, which in the UK has multiple genre-specific entries, is indeed concerned mainly with rock songs. The Offspring, Jet, Fall Out Boy, the White Stripes and The Cure are here, but it's the breadth of the genre that's tugged by including Keane or the aforementioned Gloria Gaynor and Elton John hits that are more pop than rock. They rock as songs, certainly, but it's clear that SingStar casts a fairly wide net.
Luckily, this means there are at least one or two songs here that everyone will know fairly well, and the more people you invite to the party, the more songs will be known. SCEE's plans to make the PS3 version download-driven are the perfect remedy for what is an obviously fixed amount of content. The core, though, is fantastic, and so long as you're partial to Top 40-ish hits, SingStar Rocks! does indeed rock.
That's not short-changing anyone in the EU group (though I'm sure I've already pissed off countless folks with that painfully basic breakdown), I'm just headed toward the whole notion that games are birthed from more than just the US and Japan. Case in point: the EyeToy, which has enjoyed an absolutely stupid amount of success overseas while it hasn't really made the same splash here. Likewise, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's SingStar series is an incredible hit across the pond, but hasn't made a dent here. Of course, there's a very good reason for that: the game never got the greenlight for a Stateside release. Obviously, that has changed.
Though the game is certainly a karaoke game, don't confuse it with something like developer Harmonix's Karaoke Revolution series. Yes, they're both singing games, but SCEE has gleefully approached the whole idea that SingStar Rocks! is a party game and a social experience; the EyeToy (not surprisingly), is fully supported here and used to capture images of you and your friends getting tanked and screaming in falsetto along with Jack White.
And really, that's all there is to the experience. Your friends (and the amount of booze they happen to pound) will have almost as much to do with the overall experience as the track listing, because SingStar, while peppered with some near-universal hits like "Rocketman" and "I Will Survive," can really only hold its own for a few solo sing-throughs of the 30-something strong tracks that come with the game.
That's not a slight against what's been assembled here, it's just that SingStar isn't really a solo game. If you don't have a bunch of inebriated folks around (hey, they can be high on life if that's your thing), there isn't quite as much reason to keep going. Studio London, the development house that also had a hand in those surprisingly enjoyable EyeToy games, tried to introduce as many options as possible into the mix, adding in a handful of medleys that mash a few songs together, but for the most part handing off the mics is the key. Hell, the fact that the game comes in a blister pack with two microphones right from the start should tell you something about the approach Sony is trying to take here.
Though the core system is the same (i.e. sing in tune with the song), there are a few differences between how SingStar's brand of karaoke works. For starters, you need to know the song. This is, as those Time-Life commercials have famously touted, the original song by the original artist. In fact, they play the original music video in the background behind the main screen. There are no covers here, and because you're graded not just on pitch but on timing, you actually have to know how the song is sung just as much as the melody. No more humming a long, continuous note to get through the parts that you don't know.
Luckily, you have the option of watching any of the videos with subtitles to help you learn things (since, again, it pays to actually know how the song is sung). It's here that the quality of the video really shines through. Even older tracks like Gloria Gaynor's roller rink anthem aren't plagued by significant compression, though obviously it's not terribly clean due to how old the original video was. Given that a lot of the videos enjoy having some dark blacks and vibrant colors, the fact that more than 30 videos are crammed onto a single-layer DVD is still impressive.
Also worth noting is the interface. UK design at its finest, SingStar's menus are clean, ultra-simple and incredibly elegant. Usually no more than two or three colors, the interface is rife with beveled edges and straight lines. It's the kind of clean, effortless design that I completely adore, so it's no surprise I was hooked.
The audio quality, too, is quite strong. Using the shoulder buttons, you can bump up the mic level at any time to either help your warbling or wash it out with the actual vocals, but if you do allow the original vocals to punch through, you're in for a clean, hi-fi aural experience, particularly if you have a decent receiver and surround system that can push some of the music to the back channels.
In the end, though, it all comes down to the songs, and SingStar, which in the UK has multiple genre-specific entries, is indeed concerned mainly with rock songs. The Offspring, Jet, Fall Out Boy, the White Stripes and The Cure are here, but it's the breadth of the genre that's tugged by including Keane or the aforementioned Gloria Gaynor and Elton John hits that are more pop than rock. They rock as songs, certainly, but it's clear that SingStar casts a fairly wide net.
Luckily, this means there are at least one or two songs here that everyone will know fairly well, and the more people you invite to the party, the more songs will be known. SCEE's plans to make the PS3 version download-driven are the perfect remedy for what is an obviously fixed amount of content. The core, though, is fantastic, and so long as you're partial to Top 40-ish hits, SingStar Rocks! does indeed rock.
