SingStar (PS3)

It's difficult to say whether the PS3 version of SingStar was worth the wait. After all, it is just a karaoke game, and there are plenty of those already. However, it's a very good karaoke game and one that should please anyone who enjoys serenading friends and strangers with unsolicited performances of popular songs, or indeed, having sing-offs against them to see who's top dog.

You can save some cash by using the microphones from the PlayStation 2 versions of SingStar if you've got them handy, but those of you hoping to get some extra mileage out of the Rock Band or any other USB mics are out of luck - they don't work. The game's tracklist is short but sweet, covering a wide variety of genres and decades. The 30 songs are performed by their original artists and include Radiohead, Weezer, The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, U2, OutKast, R.E.M., The Cardigans, and more.

Although the tracklist contains many popular karaoke staples, it's undeniably light on quantity, given that you can breeze through every song in the game in about two hours (and bearing in mind the range of songs on offer, you probably won't actually want to sing all of them). That's where the SingStore comes into play. For 99p you can purchase a song, along with its accompanying music video, and the game will seamlessly add it into the catalogue. At the time of this review there are 244 songs available from artists such as Arrested Development, KT Tunstall, Jamiroquai, Elvis, Run DMC, The Hives, Bonnie Tyler and lots, lots more. Additional tracks are also being added on a regular basis, with the next batch due to be released in 3 days' time.

The gameplay is pure karaoke, which means that you and your friends sing, either separately, in competition with each other or in duets. And, of course, you all laugh afterwards when you hear yourselves on playback. All the while, the game tracks your score based on how many correct notes you hit. There are three different difficulty settings, and you can sing the full song or an abbreviated version. This is great for parties or songs such as OutKast's "Hey Ya" that get repetitive. The lyrics are shown at the bottom of the screen while horizontal lines that represent pitch are displayed above. This display method works reasonably well if you're familiar with a song, but on large televisions the pitch and lyrics are far enough apart that it can be difficult to watch both at once. The game also handles songs with rapping or spoken words in a curious fashion. For example, during Faith No More's "Epic," the spoken parts are listed as "freestyle," and you can either say the words or do whatever you want because the game doesn't score freestyle sections. However, in the "rapping" portions of some other songs, the game shows a circular meter and scores you (rather inconsistently) based on your timing.

Whilst you can't go head-to-head with anyone online, SingStar does have a strong online component, at least from a community standpoint. You can create a profile to display your high scores, and upload audio clips of yourself crooning, along with 20-second video clips and photos if you have either the PS2 or PS3 EyeToy camera. You can even add effects and adjust your pitch before showcasing your "skills" with the world. These community features are interesting, and there do seem to be some people who are really into it, but the quality of the submissions is very variable, which is probably to be expected. Even the content that users have voted as the best often isn't very good, although the clip of a man in a full Chewbacca costume singing and dancing makes up for most of the terrible stuff.

A short tracklist and the fact that there are already a dozen other karaoke games out there are the only knocks against SingStar. The presentation is slick and intuitive, the community features are intriguing, despite the hit-and-miss quality of the submissions and the amount of downloadable content available to date is impressive as well. You might end up spending a pretty penny downloading new tunes, but you'll probably never need to buy another karaoke game again.

My family and I had so much fun with this game over Christmas. We are all wannabe (for wannabe read: not very good) singers but this game makes you feel like Justin Timberlake performing to thousands of screaming fans. It is the multiplayer options that make Singstar stand out against Lips on the XBOX, the eight player pass the mic team game is awesome.

The reason i have given the game 4 and not 5 stars is because the song collection is good but not great. However if you have your ps3 connected to the internet the selection of songs available for download is 5 stars.

There is a decent selection of songs with this game. But what makes the PS3 Singstar games really good is the Singstar store where you can instantly download tracks (99p each) and add them to your list of songs. You can never get a game which has all the tracks you like so I'd say, just get the one you like most or the cheapest one available and then download what you want from the online store (the songs can only be downloaded if you have any of the PS3 Singstar games). There are currently just over 1500 songs so there should be something for everyone. As for the mics, I'd highly recommend the wireless ones. Batteries last for ages and it's sooo much better without the wires. Overall, great fun!