Pretty Sassy

Happy Holidays Everyone!

My fun Christmas present this year from the Mister was a game for the PS2 called Singstar.  Singstar is basically a Karaoke game.  Singstar Rocks! contains a lot of classic-ish songs like the Stone’s “Paint it Black” and Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys are Back in Town”.  The big difference between Singstar and regular Karaoke is that with Singstar you get constant visual feedback of how you are doing and you get a score.  The constant feedback helps you to turn a sour note sweet.  Singster also does not remove the original artists voice from the track, so it’s less scary than just singing badly where everyone can hear.  It’s more like singing along with the radio.

I brought the game to my brothers’ house for Christmas and we had a very long night of singing and battling to see who is king.  Everyone from my parents to my young nephews got into the action and we were raspy by the end of the night.  The scoring on easy was very generous which prevented everyone from getting the “Tone Deaf” rating.  Sure we all sort of sucked, but the game lied to us just a little to keep our Rock Star Mystique.

The only downside?

The only song I can sing particularly well is ”Friday I’m in Love” by The Cure.  I could beat any family member as long as it was “Friday I’m in Love”.  I mean seriously, couldn’t I just have a slightly cooler song?  But no, I can only belt “Friday I’m in Love”.    Sure I can beat everyone, but what’s the cost to my soul and my coolness?

Nobody in the family is headed for American Idol, but we sure did have a lot of fun trying. 

As an aside Singstar currently has 4 games: Rocks!, AMPED, Pop and 80’s.  The starter pack (any of the above games and the special MANDATORY microphone) is $50.00 dollars.  It’s $30.00 to buy just a booster game(no microphones).

The game originated in the UK and consequently there are many more songs/gamesavailable in Europe.  Since the PS2 is region blocked(meaning good luck getting those Japanese imports to work without a hack) you won’t be able to play the European games(even if you do manage score one on Ebay).

 However the option of moving to Europe always has a certain charm. 

<UPDATE!!!> I have a second song!!  If I sing like Edith of All In The Family Fame I can manage “We’re not gonna take it” at IDOL status.  Of course, this begs the question of who exactly  would willingly listen to me sing like this.  I mean, unless you were going for blackmail or something.