Enjoying on Free online games May possibly the best Source of Enjoyment
How Song Pop Games Changed Our Lives
I enjoy all of the Karaoke Revolution games (see my American Idol version review, on this website) and decided to try Singstar Pop because this year's songs are some of my favorites. I listened to parts of all the songs in last year's game (Singstar Rocks) on the Singstar website and disliked many of the songs, so I didn't buy it.
It's all just a matter of personal taste though, so if you really liked last year's song selection, chances are you'll only like about five to ten of this year's 30 songs and probably think that they should've added an extra "o" in between the two "p"'s of Pop, to better describe the song selection. I, however, like about 22 of them, especially Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars", or as I often call it, "If I Lay Here".
The game can be played by 1-8 players and both last year's microphones and this year's microphones are exactly the same. Again, they can only be used with Singstar games and thus can't be used with any of the Karaoke Revolution games, nor can the Kar. Revolution microphone be used with the Singstar games.
For those of you that already have, or are planning to get a Playstation 3 console in the near future, you should skip this PS2 version and instead buy the PS3 version of Singstar, when it's released sometime near the end of the year. It's the only way you'll then be able to download over 350 music videos to sing along to, whereas PS2 owners will have to settle for just the 30 songs listed below.
Only three of the music videos have swear or drug related words that are either glitched or edited out. They are: Blue October's "Hate Me"; Panic at the Disco's "I Hate Sins Not Tragedies" and the Gorillaz "Feel Good Inc." (Note: Since James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" uses the video with the words "FLYING high" in the lyrics, rather than the cd version's "bad F" word, there was no need to do any censoring for this music video.)
There is nothing to unlock in the game so right away you get all 30 of the widescreen, real artist music videos that are used seamlessly in the game. The loading is also super fast! Once you pick a song, you can start singing it within five seconds or so. Very nice!
In addition to the 30 songs, you can choose from six different song medleys. They are as follows: Random; Pop Chicks; Pop Dudes; All American Indie; International Hits and Party On. Each of the specific medleys always include the same five songs (except for Random, of course). For example, the Pop Chick medley (2:30 in length) always includes "Survivor", "These Words Are My Own", "Invisible", "Fallin'" and "Baby One More Time". It's done this way since your high scores are also saved for each of these medlys (except for Random).
Unfortunately, after turning on my stereo and hearing no sound coming from my two rear surround speakers except for a bit of my own voice, I realized that ALL the songs sound like either very poor stereo or even mono recordings. They're obviously not encoded with any simulated surround cabability like all the amazing cd quality sounding songs of the Karaoke Revolution games are. If the Singstar songs were of cd quality I would have given the game 4 stars because I still enjoy it and do find it to be a refreshing change (from Kar. Rev.) to hear the real artists and see the actual music videos.
If you just use your Tv set to listen to the songs you won't notice any problem with the still clear sound quality of each song. Although, I decided to use my discman head phones (plugged into my stereo) while playing the game so that at least it's easier to escape into these less than cd quality sounding songs. I found that my scores are better in both Singstar and Kar. Rev. whenever I use my head phones anyway, and I feel more involved with the songs this way. Song Pop cheat is here for your benefits and expect the fun for your advantage.
It's all just a matter of personal taste though, so if you really liked last year's song selection, chances are you'll only like about five to ten of this year's 30 songs and probably think that they should've added an extra "o" in between the two "p"'s of Pop, to better describe the song selection. I, however, like about 22 of them, especially Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars", or as I often call it, "If I Lay Here".
The game can be played by 1-8 players and both last year's microphones and this year's microphones are exactly the same. Again, they can only be used with Singstar games and thus can't be used with any of the Karaoke Revolution games, nor can the Kar. Revolution microphone be used with the Singstar games.
For those of you that already have, or are planning to get a Playstation 3 console in the near future, you should skip this PS2 version and instead buy the PS3 version of Singstar, when it's released sometime near the end of the year. It's the only way you'll then be able to download over 350 music videos to sing along to, whereas PS2 owners will have to settle for just the 30 songs listed below.
Only three of the music videos have swear or drug related words that are either glitched or edited out. They are: Blue October's "Hate Me"; Panic at the Disco's "I Hate Sins Not Tragedies" and the Gorillaz "Feel Good Inc." (Note: Since James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" uses the video with the words "FLYING high" in the lyrics, rather than the cd version's "bad F" word, there was no need to do any censoring for this music video.)
There is nothing to unlock in the game so right away you get all 30 of the widescreen, real artist music videos that are used seamlessly in the game. The loading is also super fast! Once you pick a song, you can start singing it within five seconds or so. Very nice!
In addition to the 30 songs, you can choose from six different song medleys. They are as follows: Random; Pop Chicks; Pop Dudes; All American Indie; International Hits and Party On. Each of the specific medleys always include the same five songs (except for Random, of course). For example, the Pop Chick medley (2:30 in length) always includes "Survivor", "These Words Are My Own", "Invisible", "Fallin'" and "Baby One More Time". It's done this way since your high scores are also saved for each of these medlys (except for Random).
Unfortunately, after turning on my stereo and hearing no sound coming from my two rear surround speakers except for a bit of my own voice, I realized that ALL the songs sound like either very poor stereo or even mono recordings. They're obviously not encoded with any simulated surround cabability like all the amazing cd quality sounding songs of the Karaoke Revolution games are. If the Singstar songs were of cd quality I would have given the game 4 stars because I still enjoy it and do find it to be a refreshing change (from Kar. Rev.) to hear the real artists and see the actual music videos.
If you just use your Tv set to listen to the songs you won't notice any problem with the still clear sound quality of each song. Although, I decided to use my discman head phones (plugged into my stereo) while playing the game so that at least it's easier to escape into these less than cd quality sounding songs. I found that my scores are better in both Singstar and Kar. Rev. whenever I use my head phones anyway, and I feel more involved with the songs this way. Song Pop cheat is here for your benefits and expect the fun for your advantage.