SingStar ABBA
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SingStar ABBA
You’ll be the dancing queen...but not for long
You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen
Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine
Yes, Singstar players can now dance and jive to Sony London’s latest offering in the Singstar franchise: an ode to the most popular swedish music group the world has ever known. But, is everyone digging this one up and having the time of their lives?
Read on our review of SingStar ABBA
Here’s the complete track list for SingStar ABBA:
"Chiquitita"
"Ring Ring"
"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)"
"SOS"
"Take A Chance On Me"
"Summer Night City"
"Dancing Queen"
"Super Trouper"
"Does Your Mother Know"
"Thank You For The Music"
"Fernando"
"The Day Before You Came"
"Happy New Year"
"The Name Of The Game"
"Head Over Heals"
"The Winner Takes It All"
"I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do"
"Under Attack"
"Knowing Me Knowing You"
"Voulez Vous"
"Mamma Mia"
"Waterloo"
"Money Money Money"
"When All Is Said And Done"
"One Of Us"
Once you pop the disc in, you’ll be able to choose if you want to sing alone, battle an in-house friend, duet, or face off in an up to eight-person “Pass The Mic” battle. From there, you’ll be asked to pick one song from the 25 songs on the disc and each come with their old, crappy and ugly music video. Since the video quality is one of the worst I’ve seen in a SingStar game, I’m wondering if they could have just removed them. They scare me...
This on my HDTV makes me cry blood...
Singing mechanics are the same here. Just follow the horizontal grey bars and sing the corresponding lyrics displayed at the bottom of the screen. Then the game will recognize your pitch, tone and rhythm and will give you a score depending on how well or bad you performed. When the performance is over, you’ll be able to listen to an audio playback of yourself and if you have a PlayStation Eye (or Xbox Live Vision camera) you can watch yourself singing to your song. Once you’re done with your performance, you’ll be able to save the video clip, the audio file and any of the snapshots the camera has taken to your hard drive and watch them in your Media Gallery. From that hard drive gallery, you’ll have the possibility to upload your content to your online profile called My SingStar, which acts as your online identity over the Playstation Network.
Just like in the two previous Singstar games on the Playstation 3, My Singstar lets you post an avatar along with your favorite band and favorite song among other info. The game will showcase your best score on each difficulty and also create a comment section for your profile that’s similar to Facebook’s wall. People can write a note about your stats or videos, and you can reply to their messages. In the same profile, you will find the Online Gallery. There you can upload five of your 25-second videos, 100 of your screens, and five of your audio playbacks. You can remove one of the clips and upload another anytime you want. Also when you attach a piece of content to your profile, it is automatically posted in the SingStar Community Gallery. Here, you can go in and check out all of the images, videos, and audio other people have posted. You’ll be able to score the performance out of five stars to contribute to the average the piece is getting, similar to YouTube. If the content scores well enough, it’ll make it into the Hot Picks of the Week, and if it continues to dominate, it can make it into the Hall of Fame. Sadly, the North American web portal isn’t out yet...what’s taking so long Sony????
While the past iterations of SingStar had all these great options, it also brings back the same issues, like the lack of an online multiplayer mode of some kind (how about song challenges like Microsoft did with Lips?) and crappy video recording sessions. But since this is the third iteration of the franchise on the Playstation 3, I think that we’re going to have to live with it and not expect any changes, unless they decide to go for a truly improved Singstar game.
I’ve also complained about the lack of a track ripping system a la Rock Band on my review of SingStar Vol.2. Sadly, it’s not happening here once again and frankly, since I’m not a huge ABBA fan, I would have loved to have this option since I only enjoy three songs out of the 25. Plus, switching disks on my beautiful and powerful Playstation 3 for three songs is rather tiresome. How many versions of SingStar do I have to see before they do something about this? Luckily, I can use my downloaded tracks available on my hard drive.
Thank god I can play other tracks...
Finally, unlike the other Singstar games, Singstar ABBA comes as a standalone game. So assuming you already bought one of the first Singstar games on the PS3, you will save 20$ in the end. Which is nice...
Conclusion
If Sony thinks that applying the same PS2 strategy on the PS3 (releasing the same game only with different tracks and no notable upgrades) will work for a long time, they are terribly wrong. Personally, I could take a long break from disc-based games and have a bigger support over the SingStar music store instead. Then, when the music store (and the long promised North American web portal) become standout features, a new Singstar game, with lots of huge and notable improvements, could be released. Isn’t that far more interesting than having 40$ track packs each two months? I love Singstar, I really do. But I’m afraid my love for the franchise will change if they continue to exploit the franchise on the PS3 like this.
Verdict: ABBA fans, run to the store and enjoy! As for the rest of the masses, we could have taken the option to download the songs from the Singstar music store.
Pros
+ Nice menus and navigation just like in previous Singstar games
+ The whole MySingstar experience makes a comeback here
+ Use of the downloaded tracks available on your hard disk
+ ABBA fans will rejoice
Cons
- Only fans of ABBA will really have a kick out of it
- Quality of video clips are really, really bad
- No track ripping a la Rock Band 2...again
Final Verdict
Here's a small guide to help you understand our evaluation of games.
PRESENTATION GRADE
Can be from the game's box to the contents of the booklet, and even the game introduction. (Intro, menus, options, etc)
GRAPHIC GRADE
Up to what point the graphics have been worked on my the developper. The design type, the effort used for textures and environments, as well as animations and framerate.
AUDIO GRADE
Is the soundtrack a good match to the game's style, he ambient sounds keeping with the gameplay and the sound effects clear and convincing?
GAMEPLAY GRADE
Placement of the controls and the inferface that the player with be using during the game.
REPLAY VALUE GRADE
The most important factor in the evaluation of a game. It identifies the lifespan of the game and the fun of coming back again and again.
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