SingStar Amped

Let’s make this clear right up front … this is a karaoke game that features a list of 30 songs, with accompanying music videos. The goal is to sing the songs, either in the shortened forms (with bigger points accumulating over the time frame) or over the course of the full song, hit the notes, get a score and try to ride the top of the charts.

There is no online play, but there are party games in which you can battle another singer with the game’s two microphones (which came with the original release, what is being looked at here is an expansion), or sing as a team with the goal – again – being to outscore your opponents.

That is the basis. And quite honestly, once you cast inhibitions aside, it is rather fun – either screeching … err, singing … solo, or with others.

The base SingStar game, from SCEA, feature two microphones that connected to the PS2 via the USB ports. They do not turn on until the song is ready to be performed … thankfully.

Got all that so far? Ok, this is a review of the SingStar Amped title, a song expansion coming soon to a retailer near you. What’s new? Well, the modes are the same, but this is a list of 30 “chart-topping” songs that are guaranteed to stretch your vocal chords, at time uncomfortably. The upside is if you can actually hit all the notes (as a guy) for Quiet Riot’s Cum On Feel the Noize, you may actually be unable to talk afterwards for several hours.

Here is the list of the rest of the songs on the disk, with the artist listed first (for those who may not be too up on bands and thus confuse the band name with the name of the song):

• Alice in Chains – Would?

• Audioslave – Cochise

• Blink 182 – I Miss You

• Blue Oyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper

• Boston – More Than a Feeling

• Cheap Trick – I Want You to Want Me

• David Bowie – Changes

• Fall Out Boy – This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race

• Foo Fighters – Best of You

• Free – All Right Now

• Iggy Pop – Real Wild Child (Wild One)

• Judas Priest – You’ve Got Another Thing Coming

• Motorhead – Ace of Spades

• Nickelback – Savin’ Me

• Nirvana – Come As You Are

• O.A.R. – Love and Memories

• Pearl Jam – Alive

• Poison – Every Rose Has Its Thorn

• Queens of the Stone Age – Go With the Flow

• Radiohead – Creep

• Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop

• Steppenwolf – Born to be Wild

• Stone Temple Pilots – Vasoline

• Sublime – Santeria

• Talking Heads – Burning Down the House

• The Killers – When You Were Young

• Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Gold Lion

• Yes – Owner of a Lonely Heart

• ZZ Top – Gimme All Your Lovin’

As is probably obvious, Amped is a very nice selection of older rock anthems as well as newer classics. This is particularly important for those of us in the older music-loving group that try to tell the younger crowd about the songs we used to listen to. Sure, the music videos are not nearly as slick as those of the current generation of artists, but before you know it, you may hear your 11-year-old belting out “Like a true nature’s child, we were born, born to be wild!” with enthusiasm.

The collection is important is other regards, if you happen to be someone that remembers the iconic musicians of yesterday. The band, Free, went on to become Bad Company and the video is from before Paul Rodgers formed the superband. Paul Kossoff was a member of Free (the lead guitarist) who suffered from drug addictions and later died from heart problems stemming from his drug use at the age of 25 while on a plane flight from Los Angeles to New York. This was before that time and the video is live concert footage where you can enjoy the silky-smooth guitar runs, and quite possibly get a glimpse into the glazed eyes to see his future unfolding even then.  

But enough history, back to the expansion and game. For those who don’t know, as the video plays, the lyrics appear along the bottom and a bar will show you when to sing. Across the middle of the screen are bars associated with the pitch of the notes/words being sung. Singing into the SingStar microphone will show if you are hitting the notes, or are sharp or flat. Hitting the notes scores points. Sustaining the notes, at the appropriate times, can score big points. After you are done singing, your performance is rated in terms of notes successfully hit and the points associated with those notes. You are then graded, and can score from the low end to wannabe, to lead singer up to SingStar (with a score in the 9,000-plus range). There are three difficulty levels, which essentially means the level of forgiveness the game will give you as you sing. Being a bit off is fine at the Easy level, but you have to be almost dead on at the hard level to score well.

The multiplayer, or Party, mode has several games from the head-to-head Battle mode, to Pass the Mic (teams undertake different singing challenges in turns) . The different challenges include singing medleys for scores or to keep the meter above a specific bar by hitting the notes.

The modes are part of the base game. What Amped offers is merely a new song list and new set of vocal challenges. And that is what this review will ultimately score. In that regard, Amped is a great selection of tunes, offering something for everyone. The songs are fun and, in turn, that makes for an enjoyable time. 

Gameplay: 7.5
This collection of tunes is for those who have that overwhelming desire to belt out power rock anthems … for the most part. It spans the ages, from the late 60s (Born to be Wild was first recorded in 1968) up to more current releases. While not everyone’s cup of tea, this is a very diverse song lineup with the musical genre.

Graphics: 7.5
The good, the bad and the visually drug-induced “look at the pretty colors” – it’s all here. This is a diverse montage that goes from the confusing to the amusing.

Sound: 9.0
Great tunes!

Difficulty: Easy/Hard
Some songs are a pleasure to sing and some songs will boggle the mind that a guy can sing that high or sustain that particular note for so long without hurting himself.

Concept: 7.0
Fellow writer Louis Bedigian nailed this in a previous review of an earlier expansion. This is karaoke and that is not new. But give the dev team brownie points for the diversity of the songs with the musical grouping.

Multiplayer: 8.0
Much fun to be had in multiplayer by kids of all ages (that means those baby boomers that grew up with some of the older songs on the list to the kids that can croon an anthem like Love and Memories right from the get-go).

Overall: 7.9
Tough to rate an expansion like this, but kudos for the diversity of the songs. This is a great collection of memories and newer songs.