If you know me, you know I like to sing. So it should come as no surprise that I was totally stoked when I happened upon the PS2 game “Karaoke Revolution presents: American Idol Encore” at the Fairmount library tonight. It comes with the microphone when you check it out, so I didn’t need to worry about about special equipment (I totally wanna play Guitar Hero Aerosmith — which they’ve also got at the library — but I’m too cheap to pony up the bucks for a guitar!) Microphone in hand, I was ready to sing my little heart out.
When I got home from the library, I eagerly pulled everything out the box — game, instructions and microphone (which mercifully has a nice long cord). I popped the game into my system, and hunkered down to the business of American Idol Encore. I picked a character, a song and a venue and in no time I was singing to a crowd. I was fairly well jazzed about how simple it was to get started.
It didn’t take long, however, to realize that the song list was fantastically limited. I have to admit here that this is the first “singing” PS2 game I’ve ever played with. I’ve sang along in Rock Band, but that’s my only other video-game-singing experience. Maybe they all suck. But when I could only find four songs that I really wanted to sing, I was a little annoyed.
I hope something out there provides more options — there were loads of songs that I like and that I know the words to, but few that are even reasonably close to my range. I was stuck with “Come Sail Away,” “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” “Satisfaction,” and “Tainted Love.” I was amused for about a half and hour, but ultimately left the game feeling disappointed.
So a question to you singing gamers out there — is there a great karaoke game for the PS2?
– sam



March 5th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
actually yes, there is! It’s called Singstar and there are about for versions–
Singstar Pop
Singstar Rocks
Singstar 80′s
Singstar amp’d
They are all pretty good and have at least 30 songs to choose from on each game, from the eighties to today. Honestly, though, I’ve never played Amp’d so I don’t know what kinds of songs there are….sorry
March 5th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Yes! SingStar is the one I hear a lot about, too. Recently a teen brought her own copy in during one of our gaming programs and it was lots of fun! Maybe we should think about getting a few copies for the DPL collection. Hmmm…:)