Singstar Rocks Review

By Kristan Reed Published 11 April, 2006

But does it?

Version tested: PlayStation 2

Karaoke is simultaneously the greatest thing ever invented and the most traumatic, torturous experience imaginable, but you can't ever win. Ever.

If you happen to fall into the category of being a self-effacing bad singer, you're afforded the respect of being able to get up there and take the flak, knowing full well that everyone's having a jolly good laugh at your expense. But it's fine. Most people are pretty terrible singers - at least you had the guts to go up there. But you're still a bad singer. You still suck at singing. You don't win. Okay, you win at being a good sport, but is that really a consolation? Not if you've got a shred of self respect, no.

Of course, the psychology of the loser's sport that is karaoke is that it's inclusive. The fact that several of the world's worst singers have jovially gone up there means that you have to, jerk. It's like being hauled up to dance at a wedding, only worse. Worse because it's all eyes on you, buddy. And then you go up there and blow everyone off stage with your fabulous rendition of the song you love. Do you win? No, you lose out of a combination of the fact that i) they hated your song ("too depressing", "too poppy", "never 'eard of it") and ii) you dared to break the rules of karaoke and actually sang it properly. Loser. That's not in the rules.

But sod that. Once you get over the fact that it doesn't have to be a cringeworthy kitschfest, karaoke starts being more fun. Especially once social lubricants are involved.

Holding court

'Singstar Rocks' Screenshot 1

That sang really badly....

Singstar's long been the master of home-based karaoke fun. Measuring your ability to hold a tune has turned this peculiar hobby into a score-based challenge, and one that you can spin out into a full-on party game (for up to eight players, though no more than two at a time) if you've got some willing volunteers.

But the first wave of Singstar titles always hinted at the possibilities of greatness, rather than delivered the definitive home-based karaoke experience. The problem was - and still is to a lesser extent - that your enjoyment hinges on your personal appreciation of the tracklisting. With Sony initially going for a scattershot approach of old and new hits, younger players tended to be alienated by the older songs, while the old farts suffered by not knowing the new stuff very well. And even when you did find songs you knew and loved, they weren't always easy for mere mortals to sing.

Sony has since tinkered with the formula to limit the songs to a 'classic' era (Singstar '80s), but even then there seems to be a few questionable selections and startling omissions. But with only 30 tracks to choose from, that's an inevitable limitation, and one that Singstar Rocks suffers from just as badly as the others in the series.

With literally no new features in terms of the modes, this is as simple an 'update' as possible, but one that lives or dies on the strength of its tracklisting.

All time fillers

'Singstar Rocks' Screenshot 2

And I'm hu-mil-ia-ting my-self a-gain! Woo-hoo!

Again, though, by adopting a scattershot approach that spans several decades, Singstar Rocks returns to the choppy waters of including some ill fitting recent tracks from artists that appear completely out of place with some of the all-time greats they line-up against.

It's a matter of taste, of course, but including the likes of Bowling For Soup, Gwen Stefani and KT Tunstall alongside giants like Nirvana (Come As You Are), Queen (Don't Stop Me Now), The Rolling Stones (Paint It Black), Thin Lizzy (The Boys Are Back In Town) and Deep Purple (Smoke On The Water) is faintly bizarre. Sony's track selection for the old rock classics is uniformly excellent (big hand for the inclusion of The Undertones' Teenage Kicks, for example), but outside of that the tracklisting consists almost entirely of modern hits - some of which are good, but by no means the 'big hitters' that most people associate with each band. For example, we love Kings Of Leon, but why 'The Bucket'? Even hardened Coldplay fans would have trouble defending 'Speed Of Sound' ahead of their other hits, Queens of the Stone Age fans would have been hoping for better than 'Go With The Flow' and Bloc Party's virtually unsingable 'Banquet' is outclassed by several other better-known tracks of theirs. Some of the track considerations appear to have been chosen with all the care of iTunes on shuffle.

Also, why, on a compilation where the criteria is, quite clearly, 'Rock' do we get limp ballardeering by Keane and The Scorpions? Likewise, we know that Snow Patrol can rock out with the best of them, but Run is possibly their most downtempo single in years!

Moshtastic

'Singstar Rocks' Screenshot 3

As I want you to sing, out of tune, out of time...

But it's not all bad. Stuff like Blur's 'Song 2' and The Hives 'Hate To Say I Told You So' are what Singstar Rocks should be about: the sort of tracks that would have a moshpit knocking beers flying - not lighters aloft stuff that you'd put on before bed.

Even some of the more recent stuff is pretty good, too, with Franz Ferdinand's stomper 'Do You Want To', Kasabian's 'Club Foot', The Killers 'Somebody Told Me', Razorlight's 'Somewhere Else' and Maximo Park's 'Apply Some Pressure' all worthy entrants to the 'more recent' pile. It's just a shame that some of the filler offerings from the likes of Hole, Hard-Fi, Jet, The Bravery and The Sterophonics couldn't have made way for more dead-cert classics that people from all ages could have belted out, rather than mumble through uncertainly.

If you can track down Singstar Rocks on the cheap, though, you're pretty much guaranteed a few memorable drunken nights in. It's still as compelling and fatally flawed as it has ever been, where the ratio of good to bad songs is as frustrating as we've come to expect, and the technical limitations of the package (no proper duets, no harmonies, playback slightly off, etc.) are still lingering, unfixed, as ever. With that in mind, Rocks is hardly an essential release (especially now that Rock fans have Guitar Hero), but if you've somehow been holding out up to now, then this is as good an introduction as you could hope for.

7 / 10

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Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 6 years ago

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

  • nickthegun #1 6 years ago

    If the screeching that regularly eminates from my car is anything to go by, Go with the Flow is indeed a fine choice for QOTSA Kareoke (a phrase I never thought I would type).

    You can even go 'Weeee-aaaaow woooooo weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaooooow' to the guitar solo at the beginning.

    Its short, sweet and there are even some dubious harmonies for 2P.

  • Tricky #2 6 years ago

    Go With the Flow is fine, but I would have preferred No One Knows. Okay, so we've got that on Guitar Hero, but I love singing it more than I like playing it.

    /still hasn't fully got to grips with it on Guitar Hero

  • nickthegun #3 6 years ago

    But the key to kareoke is brevity. How many times have you seen some jackass launch into 'American Pie' forgetting that its actually nearly 10 minutes long and not just the chorus repeated over and over 6 times?

  • quedex #4 6 years ago

    I'm amazed how Kristan managed to expand "Singstar Rocks. Same game as before. New tracks, most suck. You'll buy it anyway. 7/10" into a full page of waffle. Nice writing there ;-)

  • Cabelo #5 6 years ago

    Serious talent from that man ;)
    Edited by 1 at 11/04/06 @ 12:15

  • reality_cheque #6 6 years ago

    Including Stereophonics in rock is just plain wrong. Singstar: Old Man Music would be more appropriate from them.

    It's all coming together towards my idea of "Rock Rock Revolution" where you've got 2 people on the equivalent of Guitar Hero, 1 Drum Hero, 1 or 2 people on a Singstar-esque machine (plus more if you want 'backing singers'), a Bass Hero, and a number of people on a DDR machine being backing dancers.

    All you need then is an 'Moshpit Hero' module and you've got gigs in your own home!

    Bit more work on dildonics and you've even got groupies...

  • sickpuppysoftware #7 6 years ago

    They should include an marking for effort for tuneless idiots like me.

    If I belt it out in the style of the song I get feck all. However if I mumble depressingly like Marvin I seem to score better.

    Obviously I must moan in tune.

  • coojam #8 6 years ago

    Personally I think the score for this game varies depending on who plays it. It may be 7/10 here, but for me, its the best SingStar game there is, as I love all the bands and songs on there...I suppose you could argue that about any game, but it seems a bit strange to give the game a mark, as it is so down to personal taste.

  • Lagto_Soa #9 6 years ago

    Including Stereophonics in rock is just plain wrong.

    But KT Tunstall is balls-to-the-wall death metal?

    Not that I'm defending the Stereophonics, but surely the Tunstall inclusion is the greater crime - the only 'rock' thing about her is that her face looks like a rock cake. And if anyone manages to come up with anything more tenuous than that today, they can have a fiver.

  • tonynibbles #10 6 years ago

    I was playing the German version at the weekend - it was loads of fun, infact, I'd rate the German one higher (it has 7 odd German localised tracks) - totally awesome.

  • skybluesam86 #11 6 years ago

    In what was can Hard-Fi be considered 'filler', yet Maximo Park aren't?

    Don't get me wrong, both great bands and I love 'em both, but Hard-Fi are more famous right now, and therefore more well known by the masses.

    And don't knock The Bucket. It's a top song, Kings of Leon are up there with the best, yet always overlooked.

    Finally, 'Do You Want To?' is by far Franz' wost song to date. It's just awful.

  • Hicksy #12 6 years ago

    I haven't felt obliged to get an extra pack since the original release but this is 90% to my taste so is a definite purchase.

    I'd pay £10 to have a kareoke version of Somewhere Else alone :D

  • krudster #13 6 years ago

    The Bucket's great, but there are so many other singalong KOL classics that would have been more obvious inclusions.

    Personal taste and all that.

  • Baronen #14 6 years ago

    Reality Cheque wrote:

    It's all coming together towards my idea of "Rock Rock Revolution" where you've got 2 people on the equivalent of Guitar Hero, 1 Drum Hero, 1 or 2 people on a Singstar-esque machine (plus more if you want 'backing singers'), a Bass Hero, and a number of people on a DDR machine being backing dancers.

    Hey, I've had that idea too! Although I would work in some kind of Eyetoy support as well, maybe for taping music vidoes or something. Would be great...

  • IAmBatman #15 6 years ago

    This didn't take long to degenerate into "I know what rock is and you don't".

  • reality_cheque #16 6 years ago

    But KT Tunstall is balls-to-the-wall death metal?

    I wouldn't know :)

  • quedex #17 6 years ago

    Re: tonynibbles. Another reason why the German version is better - you get "More Than Words" by Extreme and we don't :-(

  • space_ace #18 6 years ago

    is there a microphone? something? what are these indicatoins on screen, "cool" means you sang well? so it does have microphone? i didn't understand what that was all about, except it's "karaoke".

    great tunes, though.

  • quedex #19 6 years ago

    Maybe we should complain about not getting '(Everything I Do) I Do It For You' as well?!

    You may laugh, but it's a pretty good karaoke song even if it isn't actually any good...
    Edited by 1 at 11/04/06 @ 14:07

  • Azazel #20 6 years ago

    The closest thing to drunken party perfection imaginable would be: a game that combined Singstar, Guitar Hero and the Transformers: The Movie soundtrack.

  • Tricky #21 6 years ago

    @space ace - bloody hell, I'm amazed you've managed to go two years without previously being exposed in some way, shape or form to Singstar. It's been mentioned here on EG so many times and you must have seen the packs in the shops?

    Yes, it does come with a microphone (two in fact). Those blue bars you see on the screenies show the pitch you must sing at. As you sing, it shows you where your pitch is in relation to that. If you're singing in tune then the blue bar is turned brighter and you score points - the "cool" indication means that whoever was singing that bit got it pretty much on tune.

    Throw in some booze and a subsequent lack of inhibition and you've got a bloody great party game that can get seriously competitive.

  • space_ace #22 6 years ago

    thanks, tricky!

    still none of your songs in it, eh? :)

  • quedex #23 6 years ago

    Singstar 80s did.

    /sings "It's Tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme it's Tricky, Tricky, Tricky..."

  • kangarootoo #24 6 years ago

    Plus it has videos right. And Go with the Flow has one of the best music videos out there.

    Anyone who hasn't seen it should do so, that is an order :)

  • kangarootoo #25 6 years ago

    Here we go.

    http://tinyurl.com/zluwn

    The small screen doesn't do it justice though. A good video copy and a big screen really show off the colours, especially in the explosive end sequence.

    Directed by these guys.

    http://en.wikipe dia.org/wiki/Shynola

  • BremXJones #26 6 years ago

    "Celebrity Skin" is one of the best populist rock songs in the last ten years, Kristan. What are you SEXIST OR SOMETHING?

    KG

  • greatest_fish30 #27 6 years ago

    I agree I like Celebrity Skin better than most the songs on the tracklist.

  • BremXJones #28 6 years ago

    (I think, generally speaking, it's safest to call a track "Filler" when it's not the most famous song by that band - or joint close, anyway. For example, on Guitar Hero, Elephant is filler. There's no justification for any other Blue Oyster Cult song to go on before "Don't fear the Reaper".)

    KG

  • BartonFink #29 6 years ago

    Great compitition on over here in Ireland on the Fanning show (2fm) this week in conjunction with this game.
    Callers do a Karaoke on radio and every night the winner gets a PS2.
    The overall winner though gets €10K worth of concert tickets for themselves and three friends.

  • Azazel #30 6 years ago

    Celebrity Skin (the album) is a damn fine record. Regardless of CL being a c***.

  • Iron-Maiden-Rocks!!! #31 6 years ago

    congrats to Kristan on singstar,guitar hero is cool,hmmmmm,where is Iron Maiden,Fear Of The Dark,Run To The Hills,The Trooper,place that songs in the game,and you got yourself a 10/10 game ;)