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Singstar 80s Playstation 2 SCEE  I'd reviewed the original version of 'Singstar' about a year ago and therefore knew I was going to need certain things in order to write this review. I'm not referring to the game's practical accoutrements (two packed-in microphones, an optional 'EyeToy' camera), but two far more necessary elements: booze and friends. The former came in the form of a couple of bottles of a thoroughly drinkable cleanskin pinot noir, and the latter were fellow dB Magazine writers Lara Derham, Jeremy Reglar and occasional dB delivery driver Nick Lambert. We knocked a couple back, picked up the mics and prepared to sing like there was no tomorrow. The game is essentially karaoke with a competitive edge: in Battle mode you and your competitor step up with a mic each and bellow your way through an idiosyncratic selection of hits from the '80s. The melody line appears on the screen and you have to attempt to match it for both pitch and phrasing, and the most successful wins. Scoring isn't cumulative, so you can swap around willy-nilly. However, as with the original game, 'Singstar 80s' taught me a lot about both music and myself. I had no idea, for example, how bad the lyrics to Dexy's Midnight Runners' Come On Eileen were until seeing them scroll across the screen. I also learnt that Lara, the only one of the four of us who has not been paid money to sing in public at one time or another, is positively fly as a rapper (kicking everyone's arse with a spirited rendition of Run DMC's It's Tricky), then proving her vocal chops by sending us to school on Belinda Carlisle's Heaven Is A Place On Earth. And that brings me to an important tip for the new player: unlike Australian Idol, the game doesn't reward going off-song with histrionic wailing. Fortune favours the singer who can phrase the lyrics as per the blobs on-screen as opposed to the passionate performer who breathes new life into an old melody line, which is why Jeremy's pedestrian rendition of Alice Cooper's Poison beat my powerful new take on it. Similarly Nick's exciting new lyrics to The Pretenders' Brass In Pocket won him accolades, but cost him the round. No justice, I tells you. Several songs are duets with each mic corresponding to a specific performer, which is why music was the winner when Jeremy and Lara took on Starship's We Built This City, although Lara showed Nick who was Run on the aforementioned It's Tricky. Almost all of the songs are accompanied by the original video clips, which can occasionally be distracting; especially if you, like me, almost choke on your drink when the statue of Abraham Lincoln leaps to its feet to sing We Built This City's chorus. For those determined to use it as a vocal training tool there's a solo mode and there's also a bafflingly difficult pitch-based version of 'Pong' as a bonus game. However, 'Singstar 80s' is designed to be a party game, and given the vintage of the songs and therefore the likely age of the players, I'm surprised it doesn't come with a set of jello shots to get everyone in the mood. One also hopes there's a second volume (36 songs positively fly by, even when everyone wants a shot at Ice Ice Baby), and it's something that will only get pulled out when there are enough tipsy people at Chez Street-Derham, but 'Singstar 80s' is a fine evening's entertainment.  |
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