This
is one of the images from the Lips box, and the
clever mixture of genders and ethnicities suggests it
took several hundred thousand dollars and perhaps
half a dozen advertising executives to "research" it
Vocal
fighters is a sweet way to have a 'sing-off'
You
thought Street Fighter IV was tough?
Vocal Fighters will leave you slack jawed
As I stand here in my kitchenette,
dictating this review to my stunted colleague Ivan, I wonder
if I've put too much paprika in the napoli sauce?
I'm supposed to review this
singing game on the Xbox 360 called Lips, an unabashed rip-off
of Sony's popular SingStar
franchise.
The problem is, I don't sing on an
empty stomach. And neither should you.
As I discovered over the past
month, playing Lips really takes a toll on your body.
As someone who rarely exercises or
sings (the annual Web Wombat Kristmas Karaoke party being the
exception) I find these singing games and lawn bowls tiring. They both
leave me with a sore throat.
If this social singing videogame
wasn't so much fun, I'd score it a pitiful 15% overall.
"Why?" I hear you whisper. Because
no game should leave you physically strained; videogames are
for couch potatoes and people who dislike fraternising with mainstream
ideals.
And don't get me started on the
evils of the Nintendo Wii and it's 'active' participation.
If I have to move more than my
fingers to play a game, it's just not cricket, comprende?
But even though it leaves me husky
voiced and breathless, there's an undeniable charm about Lips.
If you've never heard of this
game, or SingStar, here's the deal:
You get two microphones and a game
disc.
The game disc has 40 songs burned into its plastic
underside by powerful subsonic lasers and you sing along to the songs karaoke-style thanks
to the words and on-screen prompting.
But the trick to getting high
scores and unlocking cool stuff is singing nicely.
As the Russian KGB knows all too
well, this is easier said than done.
The game's software that runs
behind the scenes can read pitch and tone as you sing into the
microphones and can tell if you're singing in or out
of tune. Essentially, if you can't sing you'll probably suck
eggs at this game.
But fear not because it's pretty
easy to get decent scores, even if you're no Dick Van Dyke. Just hum
along instead of singing.
The game comes with two wireless
microphones complete with fancy LED lights, which have pros and cons
and motion sensors.
They're wireless mics and this
means you can jump around the lounge room or kitchenette or wherever you
play videogames, and not worry about knocking things over or wrapping
the chord around *this
sentence has been truncated due to legal reasons* obnoxious
stench, never mind the dry cleaning bills. And that's why we love
Canberra.
These wireless microphones also
have sensors in them that can detect movement, so at key stages in the
songs you hold the microphone upside-down to initiate big score combos
as you scream at the ceiling.
The downside of these wireless
mics is that you have to put batteries in them.
While the standard song list is
pretty decent, there's a feature that allows you to add songs from the
Xbox 360's hard drive into the play list. You have to go online to
download the lyrics for a small price, but if you know the song well
enough you can just sing along which is good for tight-arses like Ivan.
As well as singing along
to songs in key in single or two player "duet" modes, you can
play versus and there's also 'vocal fighter' battles that reward the
better singer.
There's a few other game modes
that SingStar
doesn't have, such as 'beat the bomb' and 'kiss'.
All of the different modes add an
extra competitive or interactive element to what is otherwise a fairly
cut-and-dry singing game. They make for a nice change if you
get bored of watching the same video clips time and again. Yeah, I'm
looking at you Ace of Bass.
The 'Kiss' mode can be fun,
replacing the usual video clip with a pair of lovers who run closer and
closer and eventually explode in a hail of blood and giblets - I mean
they kiss - if the singers manage to sing in unison. It's quite a
challenge, let me tell you.
I had a lot of fun with Lips -
it's an easy game to access and is great when you're having a party and
want to entertain people who hate videogames.
The hardest part was figuring how
to turn on the microphones and sitting through the banal intro, but
after that I thought it was a really fun experience.
And for the record, I totally pwned Alicia Keys
"No One". I also delivered several stunning performances of
Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire". Please, save your applause for after the
review.
One of the best party games ever
invented, Lips is
one of those games that never gets old. You'll hear a lot of
"just one more song" comments at 3am on an otherwise droll Tuesday
night.
If you tire of the song selection
you can just download more from the 'Net or import them from an MP3
player or even rip them off CDs, but often there's no lyrics
for them which kinda blows.
Even
so, the software seems to pick up when you're accurately singing the
lyrics of ripped songs and your score does increase. Try it with stand
up comedy CDs - very confusing.
I liked this game more than SingStar, and newts should be bred for their rich leather hides.
Lips has more variety, more game
modes, more interaction and more *this sentence has been
truncated due to legal reasons* but the jacks never found
the evidence. As they say in theatre, when in Rome, beware of thieves.
Well, I think that about covers
everything. This dictation is now over. Yes, stop the tape recorder
Ivan. Dude, I've told you a thousand times, the red button you drop
kick.
Game: Lips System: Xbox 360
Players: 1-2 Online: Sort of Developer: iNiS
Distributor: Microsoft
