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Just under two years ago Sony treated closet microphone enthusiasts and shower singers everywhere to a real treat. SingStar, one of the company's premiere brands in the European marketplace, was released stateside with the late 2006 release of SingStar Rocks!. Since then the North American marketplace has been taken on a wild roller coaster of tuneage with collections like Singstar 80's, Singstar 90's, Singstar Amped and Singstar Pop. But what would the future hold for us living room karaoke hosts the world over? Would Singstar's debut on the PS3 be more of the same, or a fresh new take on an insanely popular formula?
Before we get too far into this review, it's probably best to get those who haven't had any experience with the franchise caught up. SingStar is essentially a home version of karaoke but with scoring -- nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't offer a single-player "campaign," there aren't any unlockable songs -- it lacks any manufactured incentive to keep you coming back. But that's what's great about it -- it doesn't need a manufactured incentive. You'll keep coming back for the same reason you'll keep singing along to your iPod: because it feels good, and because it's fun.
The core of the gameplay remains largely unchanged from previous entries in the series. Once a track begins, the words and pitch guide appear on the screen. Behind those the original music video for the song is playing (or if you prefer, a live shot of you performing courtesy of the PLAYSTATION Eye). Do the best you can to match up with that pitch guide and pray you come out the other end of it with a good score. Easy enough? Depending on your score your awarded with a cutesy ranking that can range from "Wannabe" to "Hit Artist".
The game modes, though limited variations on the above gameplay (like I said -- there's no campaign offered here) make this a party game of epic proportions. When playing with two players you can choose to either do battle (both of you singing at the same time, competing for the high score) or a duet (each player is expected to hit different parts of the song). The real treat though comes in the 2-8 player mode, "Pass the Mic." It's just what it sounds like. I sing a little, I pass it off. You sing a little, you pass it off. 8 friends + case of beverages + pass the mic = wicked good fun.
What makes SingStar such a good party game is it's infinite accessibility. The actual gameplay doesn't require you to ever touch a controller (song selection being the exception, although even that can be done with the BD remote if you're guests are real game-o-phobes). As long as you can sing (or at least think you can) you can play SingStar.
But this has all been said and done before. What sets SingStar on the PS3 apart? Online functionality.
Two major additions have occurred this time around, and both revolve around the out-of-the-box online services offered by the PLAYSTATION 3. The first, and probably most talked about, is the SingStore. The Singstore is an ever-growing online shop offering mountains of downloadable content. As of this writing there are 219 songs for download in the North American marketplace, and new tunes are being added all the time. At $1.49 a pop, these songs fall well in line with the prices being charged for similar content. After all -- Rock Band is charging $1.99 a track and direct competitor Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore charges $1.49 as well. It should be noted that neither of the other games include music videos, which if anything makes this pricing feel like even more of a bargain.
There are a few things worth noting about the DLC. Since they do include music videos, the files aren't small. On average you're looking at 50-70MB files. Technically speaking that means you couldn't download all 219 songs if you wanted them, as even an 80GB would run out of space (my math was a little busted on that one -- you'd come close to filling up a 20GB at this point. Thanks to reader spookybarn for pointing this out.) Also -- the initial disc only offers 30 tracks. This is standard for the series, but utilizing the blu-ray disc they could have easily fit more on there. This is just conjecture on my part, but it seems as though limiting the number of tracks that ship on the retail disc could only boost profit potential for the SingStore. With other music franchises offering much larger track lists out of the box (KR: AI Encore has 40, Rock Band has 58 and Guitar Hero III had a whopping 73), it just feels a little light. After all, not everyone is going to like every song. It could very well leave you with 15-20 tunes you could actually see yourself singing.
It should also be noted that many of the songs in the SingStore were originally featured in previous SingStar entries. Some people might feel like it's just a cheap way to beef up the store, but it works out well for those of us who missed most of the earlier entries. Quite frankly I'd like to see more series do this. After all, who wouldn't want to download an expansion pack for Guitar Hero III that let you play all of the original GH tunes? My only complaint is that the recycled offerings are select songs rather than full track listings. There's a spot reserved in the store for "song packs" that doesn't have anything to offer yet. I'd love to see this used for complete collections -- would I download the complete SingStar 90's track listing as a song pack for $30? Absolutely. Let's just hope that's what it's used for.
At the moment, all of the music videos in SingStar are presented in standard definition format. This leaves me with a mixed-bag of feelings. On the one hand, SD material will mean smaller DLC downloads (imagine how big those files would be in HD!) and open up opportunities for older videos that aren't in HD (see everything made prior to 18 minutes ago). On the other hand -- I have an HDTV, dammit! It'd be nice to see some music videos in HD in the game. I wouldn't rule out that we'll see this in the future, as all of the content in the SingStore goes out of it's way to tell you it's SD. I can't see why they'd bother to do that unless they were planning on adding HD content to go along with it.
The other major addition this time around is a little something called My SingStar Online. MSO is a new service that's a little like YouTube with a dash of other 2.0 mixed in. With My SingStar Online, you can take the audio, video, or still pictures that you recorded while performing and upload them to your profile for other people to comment on and rate. It sounds a little lame, but once you get fiddling with it it's hard to stop. Some people get really into it, dressing in drag and what not to give big performances for their adoring public. I think I've had as much fun watching others in My SingStar Online as I've had singing.
MSO is still in it's infancy though, and it shows some signs of growing pains. Simple things, like being able to favorite a video so I can go back and watch it again later just aren't there. At the moment, it's a PS3-only service in North America. Being able to access it from the web as well would be a major improvement. Sure -- showing my idiocy to complete strangers on MSO is fine, but I want to grab some embed code and post it right here on the site, dammit! I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way. Luckily this feature appears to be coming, as stumbling across the Great Britain site showed an early version of MSO on the web was up and running. It's a shame that there's no export feature -- I'd love to be able to stick these things on accessible folders on the PS3 hard drive, stick it on an SD card, and toss it up on YouTube until Sony provides me a first-party solution through My SingStar Online, but no dice.
Despite some growing pains with My SingStar Online and a smaller-than-preferred initial track list, SingStar offers one of the best vocal-based rhythm experiences on the market, a brilliant party game, a massive selection of downloadable content, and a growing set of features. Whether you're the kind of person who wants to break out some games at a party or you simply can't get enough of the microphone in Rock Band, it's time to make the jump and pick up SingStar for the PS3.
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