MS SingStar game, SK's The Crucible, more

By Tom Bramwell Published 16 June, 2008

Yes, it's Intellisponse again. Tons more.

So you've read about the Guitar Hero IV controller information, the Microsoft Mii-style avatar system and the Forza 3 download scenarios, but that's not everything the dedicated NeoGAF kids managed to bust out of market research firm Intellisponse's website in the dead of the comedy night: there's also stuff on a new Silicon Knights game, Call of Duty 5 and a Microsoft SingStar pretender.

SingStar has been a huge success for Sony, of course, and apart from a miserable karaoke game for the original Xbox Microsoft has been unable to fight back. Apparently the eventual counter-punch is called "Lips", and has two wireless microphones, a catalogue of 30 songs (including Madonna), and a downloadable songs service, and rates your singing based on pitch, tone and rhythm. Distinguishing it a bit would be the option to import your own music from CDs and iPod, which would then reduce the vocal track so you can hear yourself singing along, although presumably you'd have to do without lyric prompts.

Meanwhile, Silicon Knights is on the verge of finishing Too Human - an Xbox 360 exclusive tied up with Microsoft - but the company is also known to be working with SEGA on a current-gen console title originally announced over three years ago, and now it looks like that game could be The Crucible: Evil Within. According to the Intellisponse leaksplosion, it's an action-adventure that you can check out in a short YouTube clip showing various gameplay scenarios. SEGA has been contacted for comment, but we've heard nothing back yet.

Also on the site is news of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance II, which will apparently have "over 20" playable characters including Hulk, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Venom and the Human Torch, and is supposedly set during the "Civil War" story and forces you to choose sides. There's also talk of fusing the abilities of two characters to create hybrid powers, and target platforms are said to be Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, PSP and DS.

Elsewhere on the Activision front, Call of Duty 5 is confirmed as Call of Duty: World at War, with box artwork mockups to boot. COD5 is set during World War II and is supposedly due out this year from Treyarch, with a big reveal expected later this month.

That's still not everything, either. There's a leaked video of Ultimate Band, Disney's Wiimote-and-nunchuk-controlled Rock Band equivalent; talk of Wii Yoga, with "adaptable weekly schedule of exercises that will leave you feeling refreshed" where you match a yoga guru's on-screen "poses, stretches and triangular positions" with Wiimote and balance board (publisher/developer unknown); a pop culture version of the "Scene It?" quiz game; and a few other things that we're checking out with publishers at the time of writing.

Poor old Intellisponse. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're off to change all our passwords.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • woodnotes #1 4 years ago

    Instellisponse are so history.

  • DanWhitehead #2 4 years ago

    "Also on the site is news of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance II, which will apparently have "over 20" playable characters including Hulk, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Venom and the Human Torch, and is supposedly set during the "Civil War" story and forces you to choose sides."

    NOOOOOOOOO!

  • DonnieDarko333 #3 4 years ago

    Lets hope importing your own songs and singing over em is better then Microsofts Music Mixer which was released a few years back on Xbox..cause it never did..in my case anyway.

  • des #4 4 years ago

    He he,last night was fun.The guy that told us how to bypass their security is new
    internet hero.

  • Moz #5 4 years ago

    Oh dear! just watch the Ultimate band vid and it looks shockingly rubbish!!!!


    MS are going to pissed!! I'm guessing that's a fair chunk of their E3 reavel out of the window!!


    As for CoD5 there's a hudge article about in this months GamesTM anyway!! so nothing new there.

  • Monkey_Puncher #6 4 years ago

    I hope they're not rusing out that Marvel game. Ultimate Alliance was a lot of fun, but this new one seems to have appeared out of nowhere...

  • DFawkes #7 4 years ago

    It was announced ages ago, just never been seen. I'm hoping it's actually been in development, although I admit I'd buy it regardless of improvements, as long as my favourites are still in it. And add Solid Snake, why not :p

  • Les #8 4 years ago

    Good news. Hopefully this will pressure Sony to release wireless SingStar mics asap.

  • The-Bodybuilder #9 4 years ago

    >"Distinguishing it a bit would be the option to import your own music from CDs and iPod"

    Now THAT sounds cool. Wish it could be done for something like GH or RB.

  • Xerx3s #10 4 years ago

    It would more or less mean the end off DD in that sector.

  • morriss #11 4 years ago

    Weird that every other site was linked to apart from the Lips source, which was indeed, VG247 at 22:44 yesterday evening. :)

    VG247 > NeoGaf
    Edited by 1 at 16/06/08 @ 10:59

  • Widge #12 4 years ago

    Its what MS are really good at doing though, checking out the competition around them and absorbing it into their own product. Welcome to Windows! Tabbed browsing on IE7 etc....

    Makes sense though, something the competition has that works well that they haven't got, why not emulate it. Works the other way round too, ie. the appearence of trophies and ingame XMB for the PS3.

  • Xerx3s #13 4 years ago

    Oh yes, ms is the only one who does that. Hello, everybody copies. Name one thing on any machine that isn't just an improved copy.

  • Wash #14 4 years ago

    Its a pretty common business practice all around isnt it though?

    Apple got the mouse from Xerox.

    Sony are getting "Entitlements, Trophies" from Live

    Its whether its done better thats important, not always the case for Apple (just more fashionalby), but in the case of music mixer, whilst a nice attempt it wasnt like singstar, also with the dlc flowing for things like gh3, rock band makes sense to combine they're delivery of such things with that kind of technology.

    I might go into business, its easy.

  • des #15 4 years ago

    Wii Yoga,oh come on,what is next?Wii Sex

  • Xerx3s #16 4 years ago

    "what is next?Wii Sex"

    I would buy that if it was hardcore.

  • monkie_king #17 4 years ago

    Does SingStar sell outside of Europe? I thought Karaoke Revolution was the big thingin the USA?

  • captainrentboy #18 4 years ago

    Lips? Lips?
    What a fooking dire name, that just reminds me of an old saggy vagina rather than a fun singstar-esque game.

  • miiiguel #19 4 years ago

    agree, Lips is a terrible name.

  • Les #20 4 years ago

    "Its whether its done better thats important, not always the case for Apple (just more fashionalby)"

    It's not about being better, it's about getting people to use it. As for the mouse, it was invented by Xerox but put to good use by Apple. If they hadn't stepped in we might still be looking at DOS screens...

  • Moz #21 4 years ago

    I'm really not convinced by this Lips thing.

    Knowing MS the track pricing will be in the £1.50 a song region and as for the using your music cd's really can't see that working as well as a track that had the vocal track coded properly for the game.

  • DanWhitehead #22 4 years ago

    I understand they need to compete with rivals, but flat copying Buzz and now Singstar is pretty terrible.

    I'm pretty sure that quizzes and karaoke both predate the current console generation.

  • Moribundman #23 4 years ago

    I can confirm that I was told LIPS allows you to sing along with "every song ever recorded" (or something to that effect), the mics are indeed wireless and MS seemed very pleased about that, and the proposed ad campaigns made great use of the iconography of the prompt bars, suggesting that it might somehow use these in custom songs too... It was very much pitched as the "next big thing" where I heard about it, and there may well be some sort of online functionality. Despite generally disliking this type of game I was intrigued. I presumed that custom songs would either be importable via standard 360 means (direct CD rip/temporary plug in USB) or else MS were going to try to play with the big boys and set up some sort of iTunes service.

  • kangarootoo #24 4 years ago

    "Does SingStar sell outside of Europe?"

    It sells in the US, not sure about Japan though.

  • miiiguel #25 4 years ago

    "or else MS were going to try to play with the big boys and set up some sort of iTunes service"
    er... Zune Marketplace ?


    "Zune Marketplace is an online music store that integrates with the software. Initially offering two million songs it grew to more than three million songs."
    wikipedia
    Edited by 1 at 16/06/08 @ 15:57

  • Bumhug360 #26 4 years ago

    ""Does SingStar sell outside of Europe?"

    It sells in the US, not sure about Japan though. "

    Something MS are used to so shouldnt be a problem ;)

  • sanctusmortis #27 4 years ago

    Nick: they don't have to; it's just a linkable source. Me and many other forumites were doing this ourselves last night!

  • 3william56 #28 4 years ago

    IntelliLOL

    Can't see how LIPS (ugh!) would work on random tracks. No lyrics, not even a tone bar. Play CD/MP3, add some jolly screensaver, and hope to hell you can screen out the music enough to have a consistent vocal track to compare with the mic input. That new Korean MP3 format with separate tracks for vocals/lead/base/drums etc. might work, but otherwise the competition part goes out the window and it's just like singing along to the radio.

    I can't see MS giving up the lucrative p*ssed female buying dozens of tracks at 2am instinct revenue.

    They've also got the hurdle that SingStar has become such a known brand, it's synonymous with karaoke games for the be-skirted set.

    - Teenage Girl to teenage girl: want to come over to my place and play with my Lips?
    /orders webcam.

  • Xerx3s #29 4 years ago

    "As for the mouse, it was invented by Xerox"

    No it wasn't. They where the first to implement it but they didn't invent it.