[Mini-Review] Karaoke Revolution Country
Sing along to country songs while you fight the urge to drink and sink into a spiral of depression all at the same time!
Published: April 4, 2006
The Good
Someone at Konami deserves a raise -- not for coming to the inevitable conclusion that people love to get sauced and sing along to depressing songs with twangy voices and moody guitar -- but linking their sing-along franchise Karaoke Revolution add country songs, and selling the whole mess to Country Music Television. MTV's country cousin has such insane reach, and Harmonix and WaveGroup's turn-around time for the KR games and the songs that are covered in them is so short that it was a relatively low-risk offering.
Not surprisingly, it works, with the very obvious caveat that you have to obviously know these songs and like the music. Since seemingly everyone I talk to likes "all kinds of music -- except country," that seems like a stretch, but again, enterprising minds at Konami found the perfect conduit to reach the target audience.
Either people are lying about the secret love for country music, or they really don't care about it, but regardless, even I was able to pick up on a couple of artists that I knew. Like all KR games, I could more or less limp through the verses until I got to the chorus, but to really get any mileage out of the game, you're going to have be a country fan.
The game makes it at least easy to hum along to stuff, though. Covers of Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Johnny Cash, and so on, so even if you don't know country, you've probably at least heard the songs before, and likely know more of the chorus than you thought you did.
The game itself is quite literally the previous games with a country skin slapped on them. The menus are identical, there's EyeToy support, the duets, one- and two-mic parties, the point totals, all of it. Oh, sure, you'll get some new country outfits, but that's about it.
The Bad
There's no getting over it, though; you have to know these songs to enjoy them, and of course you have to be able to sing. When, say, a mother of a certain staffer comes down from Seattle and drunkenly belts out off-key tunes, it might make for fun for the person singing, but the rest of the audience may not be having as much fun. Then again, this is precisely what makes real-life karaoke so... interesting.
There also haven't been any major additions to the formula already set forth in the past four games. Granted, neither Konami nor Harmonix probably wanted to spend any extra time or money on implementing new features on what is realistically untested ground, but something would have been nice.
The Verdict
It's likely that every review of this game so far has said the same thing, but it's no less true: this is Karaoke Revolution with country songs. Because it's more pigeonholed genre-wise than the more pop/rock-friendly KR tunes previous, the universal appeal just isn't there, but the track listing is at least wide enough that most will know one or two songs. One or two songs, however, is not a full game, and it's likely the crowd that dug the KR games in the past probably won't get into this.
Then again, this is to be expected. Most game editors probably aren't country fans, and I'm perfectly happy to admit this isn't a game made to entertain us. It's made for the Midwest and the South, and that's exactly the type of crowd that will eat this game up. Just don't expect it to go over well with general partygoers expecting Top 40 tunes.
Someone at Konami deserves a raise -- not for coming to the inevitable conclusion that people love to get sauced and sing along to depressing songs with twangy voices and moody guitar -- but linking their sing-along franchise Karaoke Revolution add country songs, and selling the whole mess to Country Music Television. MTV's country cousin has such insane reach, and Harmonix and WaveGroup's turn-around time for the KR games and the songs that are covered in them is so short that it was a relatively low-risk offering.
Not surprisingly, it works, with the very obvious caveat that you have to obviously know these songs and like the music. Since seemingly everyone I talk to likes "all kinds of music -- except country," that seems like a stretch, but again, enterprising minds at Konami found the perfect conduit to reach the target audience.
Either people are lying about the secret love for country music, or they really don't care about it, but regardless, even I was able to pick up on a couple of artists that I knew. Like all KR games, I could more or less limp through the verses until I got to the chorus, but to really get any mileage out of the game, you're going to have be a country fan.
The game makes it at least easy to hum along to stuff, though. Covers of Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Johnny Cash, and so on, so even if you don't know country, you've probably at least heard the songs before, and likely know more of the chorus than you thought you did.
The game itself is quite literally the previous games with a country skin slapped on them. The menus are identical, there's EyeToy support, the duets, one- and two-mic parties, the point totals, all of it. Oh, sure, you'll get some new country outfits, but that's about it.
The Bad
There's no getting over it, though; you have to know these songs to enjoy them, and of course you have to be able to sing. When, say, a mother of a certain staffer comes down from Seattle and drunkenly belts out off-key tunes, it might make for fun for the person singing, but the rest of the audience may not be having as much fun. Then again, this is precisely what makes real-life karaoke so... interesting.
There also haven't been any major additions to the formula already set forth in the past four games. Granted, neither Konami nor Harmonix probably wanted to spend any extra time or money on implementing new features on what is realistically untested ground, but something would have been nice.
The Verdict
It's likely that every review of this game so far has said the same thing, but it's no less true: this is Karaoke Revolution with country songs. Because it's more pigeonholed genre-wise than the more pop/rock-friendly KR tunes previous, the universal appeal just isn't there, but the track listing is at least wide enough that most will know one or two songs. One or two songs, however, is not a full game, and it's likely the crowd that dug the KR games in the past probably won't get into this.
Then again, this is to be expected. Most game editors probably aren't country fans, and I'm perfectly happy to admit this isn't a game made to entertain us. It's made for the Midwest and the South, and that's exactly the type of crowd that will eat this game up. Just don't expect it to go over well with general partygoers expecting Top 40 tunes.
