For those who aren't familiar with the Singstar franchise, let's provide you with a quick recap. Each Singstar game comes bundled with two microphones, as well as a USB convertor. The objective of the game is to sing into the USB microphones, for each song the game will give you a score out of 10,000 and the player who scores the highest amount of points wins. It's a very simple formula and one that has remained fun ever since the first Singstar game came out nearly five years ago.
A song that's quite a bit of fun to sing.
Even though there have now been dozens of different Singstar games, the franchise hasn't really changed. There is a battle mode in the game, as well as a duet option. Singstar has always been a game that is best played with friends and Singstar Pop Edition is no different. The full tracklist for Singstar Pop Edition is as follows:
Alphabeat - 10,000 Nights of Thunder
Amy Winehouse - Rehab
Black Kids - I'm Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance
Bon Jovi - Livin' On A Prayer
Chris Brown - With you
Chris De Burgh - Lady In Red
Cyndi Lauper - True Colours
Gloria Estefan - Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
Jordin Sparks feat Chris Brown - No Air
Kaiser Chiefs - Never Miss A Beat
Kate Nash - Mouthwash
Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow
Little Jackie - The World Should Revolve Around Me
N*E*R*D - Sooner Or Later
P!nk - So What!
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Robbie Williams - Angels
Robyn - Be Mine
Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me
Sam Sparro - Black and Gold
Solange - I Decided
Sugababes - Girls
The Feeling - Rose
The Killers - Human
The Police - Every Little Thing She Does
The Script - The Man Who Can't Be Moved
Will Young - Changes
Will.i.am Feat Cheryl Cole - Heartbreaker
Yazoo - Don't Go
While we are pleased that Sony has provided thirty tracks for our singing pleasure, some of the songs will not be instantly recognisable to Australian audiences. Interestingly, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody also appears on the compilation, so those who purchased Singstar Queen may feel like the best song from that collection is now doubling up on Singstar Pop Edition. Nonetheless, the inclusion of current hot songs such as Sex on Fire should guarantee that you'll find something to sing on this collection. Overall we don't think the song collection is as good as Singstar Volume 3, but it will all come down to personal preference.
Singstar Pop Edition brings with it an update which installs directly off the disk. The new update adds trophies to the Singstar experience, as well as voice control. Voice control on 99% of games could be considered a gimmick, but for Singstar it's a brilliant addition. Previously when changing a song or viewing high scores, you would need to use the controller, and having to handle both the microphones and a controller can become a bit clumsy, but now you can just use your voice to change the song. The voice recognition software is pretty accurate and if the game doesn't understand what you've said then a red question mark will hover just below the song. Using voice control is relatively simple, you just need to say clearly into the microphone "Show Song" or "Show Genre" (and replace song and genre with your preference) and the game will move to that particular song automatically. We didn't realise how much of a great addition the voice control was until we went back to using the controller. The trophies are a novel introduction that could see a few people return to Singstar, if only to get all of the trophies and prove they really are a Singstar. The patch is free, so those without Singstar Pop Edition will still get these enhancements when the patch is released next week.
Ahh Pink, your songs are always on Singstar packs.
Our complaints about Singstar Pop are identical to the issues we've mentioned in previous Singstar reviews (and even our review for Singstar Queen). Even though songs downloaded from My Singstar Online are added to your library, if you want to change songs you still need to insert the disk that the song is from, which is archaic. There needs to be some way where you can load all your songs on the hard-drive without changing disks, with the ability to just load the game once and be done with it. The whole point of My Singstar Online was to minimise disk swapping and with so many Singstar games already available on the PlayStation 3, the disk swapping is becoming tedious. It's also still remarkably simple to cheat on Singstar as all you have to do is hum along to the music, but most of the time the people you are playing with will put a stop to this anyway.
When it comes to purchasing a Singstar game by now it should really only come down to one thing, the tracklist. If the tracklist appeals to you then we would recommend that you pick the game up, but if there are only a few songs on the collection which take your fancy then we would say you're better off just buying some songs off the Singstore. Overall though, Singstar Pop Edition is a worthy addition to the series, and the new patch does make things easier, but with six PlayStation 3 Singstar games now available, you may need to pick and choose your favourites, especially as the RRP of the games is still $59.95 each.
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