TonyTone

SingStar '80s

Anyone looking forward to this new release? I know there will be some detractors who'll say that the gameplay isn't as good as that of the Karaoke Revolution series, and/or don't like the fact that SingStar requires the purchase/use of their propriatary USB microphones rather than be able to use the ones that come w/ KR...but the songlist is pretty impressive...I have to admit I have a thing for '80s music.

Aaron Silverman

Re: SingStar '80s

What's the song list look like? I haven't been impressed enough with the tracks in the other SingStar releases to buy them.

I didn't know that about the microphones. That's annoying.

"How wonderful it will be to have a leader unburdened by the twin horrors of knowledge and experience." -- Mr. Wick

TonyTone

Re: SingStar '80s

Billy Joel -- Uptown Girl
Men At Work -- Who Can it Be Now
Billy Ocean -- Caribbean Queen
Nena -- 99 Red Balloons
Blondie -- Heart of Glass
The Pretenders -- Brass in Pocket
Culture Club -- Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
R.E.M. -- Stand
Cyndi Lauper -- Time After Time
Run D.M.C. -- It's Tricky
Dead or Alive -- You Spin Me Round
Simple Minds -- Don't You Forget About Me
Dexy's Midnight Runners -- Come on Eileen
Soft Cell -- Tainted Love
Duran Duran -- Rio
Squeeze -- Tempted
Erasure -- Respect
Starship -- We Built This City
Europe -- The Final Countdown
Survivor -- Eye of the Tiger
Flock of Seagulls -- I Ran
Tears for Fears -- Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Foreigner -- I Want To Know What Love Is
Thompson Twins -- Hold Me Now
Kim Wilde -- Kids in America
Tina Turner -- The Best
Madness -- Our House
Twisted Sister -- We're Not Gonna Take It
Madonna -- Material Girl
Wham -- Wake Me Up Before You Go Go

TonyTone

Re: SingStar '80s

I have to admit I'm not entirely familiar w/ "Brass In Pocket" and "Respect", and vaguely recall "Stand"...but am totally familiar w/ the rest of the songs on the list; IMHO this release offers a more-appealing list of songs, compared to past Singstar offerings (granted that some of them were non-North America releases).

TonyTone

Re: SingStar '80s

Update--I bought it, and knowing very little about the specifics of the SingStar gameplay beforehand, I have discovered one very critical shortcoming--I would even go as far as call it a flaw: it is not possible to mute/lower the vocals of the original video. IOW--you'll always hear the original singing voice in the "background", which IMHO ruins the karaoke aspect of the gameplay quite a bit. In that regard, the Karaoke Revolution series--even though it doesn't have original vocals and music videos built into the gameplay--is still the better karaoke video game.

There are other things about SingStar that I can nitpick, but the inability to lower/mute the original vocals is a killer...

Aaron Silverman

Re: SingStar '80s

That *is* an excellent track list! I think Tempted is the only tune I don't know (and I'd probably remember it if I heard it).

Tony, aside from the inability to lower the original vox, is gameplay essentially the same as in Karaoke Revolution?

I just got Karaoke Revolution: American Idol edition ($21 on clearance at Target, with mic, BTW), so once we play that out I'll definitely consider this one.

Of course, by then I'll probably be busy with Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. . .

"How wonderful it will be to have a leader unburdened by the twin horrors of knowledge and experience." -- Mr. Wick

TonyTone

Re: SingStar '80s

Aaron--it goes w/o saying that Singstar's main--if not only--selling point is that the songs include the original music videos (where available--there is no accompanying music video for "Eye Of The Tiger") and original vocals/music, vs. the synthesized music and vocals not sung by the original artist/group w/ KR. The basic gameplay options are available--solo, duet, solo/duet karaoke-only (i.e., no scoring); three scoring/difficulty levels; abbreviated and regular-length song version option; and medley gameplay. I think there are one or two other gameplay options (one of which is some sort of "rap meter" type game play); also, unlike KR there is no character customizing options since SS does not offer you to select a "character" to represent you during scoring competitions. It does make decent use of the Eye Toy camera--you can set it so that it uses live video in place of the original music video; you can also use it to take a picture of yourself to use as a sort of picture ID for identifying high score entries.

I will say one thing about SS '80s--for whatever reason, it is less forgiving than KR when it comes to pitch accuracy, even when playing in "Easy" scoring mode; either that, or the SS mics are way too sensitive when it comes to picking up/detecting pitch--if your pitch wavers even just a wee bit or if you can't hold certain pitches long enough, SS will pick it up and score you accordingly...KR is a bit more forgiving in that regard...at least in "Easy" mode.

There is one nice SS feature that I don't believe KR offers (I'm not sure about KR-AI, but the previous KR versions didn't have it)--it can play back your singing performance...meaning that you can listen for yourself as to how good (or, how bad) your singing was.

Coincidentally--I was playing KR-AI just yesterday; I achieved some more unlockables, to the point that the only unlockables remaining are the duet Platinum record unlockable (easily achievable--just gotta get my wife to do a duet w/ me) and the 20/30/40 Diamond records unlockables, which is pretty much impossible for me--to get Diamond on a song you have achieve a perfect score for the song...and unless you know each and every song inside and out, AND have a really good vocal range--getting Diamond on all 40 songs is very difficult (I've gotten only 12 Diamonds).

Aaron Silverman

Re: SingStar '80s

Cool.

I hope to unwrap KR: AI this weekend finally.

"How wonderful it will be to have a leader unburdened by the twin horrors of knowledge and experience." -- Mr. Wick