So, Xbox finally has a game to compete in the vocal styling’s market. I picked this up for my daughter yesterday, and freely admit to some curiosity about how it played.
Fair warning, even dogs sing better then I do. Or at least my dog does.
Included with the game are two microphones and two sets of batteries so you can start right away. Inserted, for people who have a Zune, is a 14-day pass for Zune Marketplace and an instant download for a free song list. I have not tried either since my family are iPod junkies.
When loading the game, you'll have to download an update, but what game doesn’t nowadays? The menu is pretty self-explanatory. There are things like Jukebox, Store, Options and other Players. However, it's easy to jump right in if the main thing on your mind is singing and feeling the experience.
You start with 40 songs from all genres of music, including country. There are songs for everyone to recognize right off the bat. When choosing a song you will have many options. Options include: single or multi-player, full song or short song, versus or duet and many more. While in these menus you can also make sure the the built in lighting effects on the end end of your microphone are active which gives singing a nice visual as well.
When you start singing, you can hear your voice come right from the television. Hitting the notes at the right time is important for your coolness factor. If you can get your cool factor up, you'll get more points, like any other music/rhythym game.
In the standard game mode, you'll be watching the original music video along with the words for the most part. In other modes, you will see other animations like boxing, romance walk to kiss and others. At times, you can also shake your microphone, and on the screen you will see a tambourine show up. It is just another fun way to get involved.
After set-up my 16 year old daughter wanted to sing. We did co-op and since I'm mean, I had to show my love for country music. The artist of choice was Trace Adkins, and the song was "Ladies Love Country Boys." Yes, I made her suffer, but because I have no talent and monotone, I was the one whose score suffered in the long run. After getting beat big time, I gave up and watched my wife and daughter sing the night away.
For me, the $74 was worth it to see my daughter smile and for our family to have good times. I would only recommend this game if you have rhythm and can carry a tune. The microphones seem durable so far, and they're wireless, so that's a bonus. The downside is that they don't appear to work (right now) with other music games like Rockband and Guitar Hero World Tour. The game's designers are not ruling out a patch so that functionality may be down the pike.
Bottom line, if you’re a Zune user and you love to sing then this might be something you should look into.
