Freddie might not be around anymore but the spirit of Queen has not disappeared and still very present in the musical landscape. London Studio, home of the Singstar franchise, knew that the time for them to immortalize the legendary group had to come. Already available in Europe since last year, North American Singstar players can now get their hands on the game.

Let’s see if this new Singstar compilation bites the dust or not...

Once you pop the disc in, you won’t be surprised to see that the same presentation from previous Singstar titles is present once more. In terms of gameplay modes, you will still 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 its own music video. I was relieved to see a better quality of video not only visually but also artistically (Singstar ABBA videoclips were ugly and boring).

Here’s the complete track list for Singstar Queen:

* A Kind Of Magic
* Another One Bites The Dust
* Bohemian Rhapsody
* Breakthru
* Crazy Little Thing Called Love
* Don’t Stop Me Now
* Fat Bottomed Girls
* Hammer To Fall
* I Want It All
* I Want To Break Free
* Innuendo
* Killer Queen
* One Vision
* Play The Game
* Radio Ga Ga
* Save Me
* Somebody To Love
* The Show Must Go On
* These Are The Days Of Our Lives
* Tie Your Mother Down
* Under Pressure
* We Are The Champions
* We Will Rock You
* Who Wants To Live Forever
* You’re My Best Friend

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. Now, it’s important to note that singing Queen songs are not an easy task. Freddie Mercury was known to have a very particular voice. Sometime going low or high during the song, singing as him will be really challenging. However, we all have tried or wanted to sing Killer Queen or Bohemian Rhapsody like him so this is the chance you have been waiting for. 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 another compatible USB camera, you can record and watch yourself singing (very poorly in my case) to the 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 the content to your MySingStar online profile, which makes another comeback here.

In my past Singstar reviews since Singstar Vol.2, I’ve complained about the lack of a track ripping system a la Rock Band 2. Sadly, it’s not happening here once again. In this digital era, switching disks is rather tiresome. The game does have an option to swap disks easily (pushing the Select button, swap disks and the new game will automatically load) but still, I rather have the option to rip this (and other Singstar discs) to my hard drive for quicker access. Singstar Vol. 3 is already out in Europe and the option isn’t available so I guess I will have to wait god knows how many versions of Singstar before Sony does something...

Singstar Queen does use the latest innovation brought by London Studio to the franchise such as the voice controlled menus. Beside this, the ability to access your downloaded songs on your hard drive and download new ones from the Singstar Store are also available here.

Finally, just like Singstar ABBA before it, Singstar Queen comes as a standalone game. So assuming you already bought one of the first Singstar games on the PS3 with the microphones included, you will save 20$ in the end.

Conclusion

When I reviewed Singstar ABBA back in December, I went on record by saying that if Sony thought that they could apply 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 were terribly wrong. I still stand by my observation as they are doing it again here. However, the fact that this Singstar game based on Queen (and unlike ABBA, it goes after a wider group of people including Queen fans), my wrath against Sony is appeased but not completely gone. I still think that the option to rip the songs to my hard drive is a must, especially when the game presentation is unchanged.

Singstar Queen is the most fun, challenging and rewarding experience to appear on a Singstar game line-up. Do I need to add that Singstar Queen is much more amusing than Singstar ABBA?