U-Sing : Girls Night plus Microphone (Wii)

Initially U-Sing appears to be a good deal for karaoke fans; recent, high profile songs, a bundled microphone and low price. Unfortunately the disappointments aren't slow to arrive.

First bad surprise, the songs are just unmodified copies of the music videos, which means you're singing along with, instead of in place of, the track's singer. You've got the option to reduce the volume of the singer, but this also reduces the volume of the music (of course), so in the end this is not really acceptable. At the same time your own voice is not very loud, so unless you do reduce the volume of the music and set your voice volume to max, you don't really hear yourself.

Each time you sing you are recorded automatically, so you can play the track back when you've finished and listen to yourself - or you could if you can make out what the microphone picks up. Playback is muted and muffled, even more so then when you're singing. You might say "Sing louder then", but that just overloads the microphone (there's a small, hard to see gauge on the screen which will turn red if you sing too loud or too close to the micro).

The next bad surprise is that the multiplayer games only work if you have two microphones, so the only way to have party games with one mic is to play for points. The problem with this is that the game only remembers high scores, so to compete as a group each player has to remember what they scored for comparison at the end. It would have been so easy to make some multiplayer games where the microphone gets passed around. In fact it would be the only way to have more than two players since the mics plug into the USB ports at the rear of the Wii and there are only two of them. What's so hard in doing duets where each singer takes the mic when it is their turn?

Of course, two people singing into the same mic simultaneously would overload it again. You don't expect a great microphone when it is bundled with a Wii game, but this one is pretty awful all the same. It looks great, but has no sound insulation between the plastic handle and the microphone itself. The result of this is that you fingers moving on the handle are picked up as much as your singing is, so you soon learn to keep you hand rigid while singing.

My last gripe concerns the actual game aspect of the singing. You score points by singing in key as much as possible. As well as the lyrics being displayed along the bottom of the screen a scale is also displayed with bars, usually corresponding to the song's words, representing which key you should be singing at which stage in the song. Like all Wii games, this system depends a lot on the cooperation of the player. Just as you can humiliate someone at tennis or bowling by sprawling on the couch, flicking your wrist while they stand and go through the motions, with U-Sing you can get some great scores more easily just by humming or "la-la-la" singing. The note-by-note scoring also encourages you to sing like a robot, moving from flat note to flat note to maximise the score.

Finally, just a few words regarding the downloading of new tracks, of which you get one free just to try out the system. Other tracks generally cost 200 Wii points (£2) each and, I'm guessing, only include singers on the Universal Music label. These downloaded files are much smaller in size than those on the disc, both to minimise download time and to economise space in the Wii's memory, so they are heavily compressed and mediocre quality.

The overall idea of U-Sing is good and adds value to a videogame-based karaoke, but the execution behind it is pretty uninspired. It appears that the goal is to dress up an online music score as a karaoke and make money by selling new tracks. However, the developer appears to have overlooked the fact that it needs to be more fun than singing along to your iPod in your car to make people want to spend more money on it.

I'd hoped that my girlfriend could have a lot of fun with her friends some evenings with a party game karaoke, but this game isn't for that at all. Overall, a bit of a let down.

Strange but as I type this review the only other reviewers are all men! Yes, we all bought it for our daughters, didn't we?

Anyway, back to the review. I wanted a guineapig to try this out on and what are daughters for? Fact is, I had never heard my daughter sing before and she was quite giggly at first. However, she was up for it and soon got into stride singing along with the female lead singers.

The program starts with a little practise session so you get the hang of things. In front of the singers you see a series of long blobs representing the notes to sing, their length representing how long to sing each one and their height how high to sing. Below that lie the words to sing. It was some time before I noticed that the blobs are on a musical stave, barely visible in front of the pop videos.

As you sing along, the current word of lyrics is highlighted and the blobs on the stave, each as long as the note should be, change colour. Unfortunately, the blob for each word is not lined up with that word, so it helps if you actually know the tunes beforehand. (In real music the notes would be aligned with the lyrics.)

Occasionally there is a "gold" note and if you get that correct all successive notes you get right also become gold. Gold notes score extra points, particularly a run of them, so it is important to concentrate on getting those right.

You can try a short or long (full) version of each song and at three difficulty levels. You are then able to try to improve your singing by increasing your score, representing how accurately you sang the song. In that sense, it teaches you in a simplistic way to sing better.

Unlike other Wii titles, you just type your name in against each score. There is no association between scores and Miis, which is disappointing.

Each effort you make is recorded and you can play back that recording. Unfortunately I think you must have to really yell into the microphone as the player's voice was barely audible, even though you can change the mix between track and player. And this was played back through high quality surround gear.

There are a limited number of tunes on the DVD and also a limited number to buy at 200 Wii points each online. You do not get much for your money.

I am sure the target audience will enjoy using this but doubt it will hold their attention for long. I thought it expensive for what you get, especially compared with Super Mario Galaxy (Wii), say, which would give hours of fun. My daughter, who is 21, enjoyed using it but thought it was aimed at early teens.

The microphone provided is usb, not wireless, another disappointment.

I am giving a high score because I think that despite its shortcomings it will appeal to pre and early teenage girls and will make someone's birthday a memorable one!

Oh, and I was impressed with my daughter's voice!

This is great fun to use, and has featured at several of our family get-togethers now, with hilarious results on each occasion! It's pretty simple to get up and running with - no complicated play tutorials or anything - you more or less just choose a song and sing away. The range of songs is quite good, too, with a couple of older tunes in there as well as loads of recent stuff, so there's something for everyone.

One very useful feature is the facility to choose the full-length version of a song or a shortened version (usually a minute and a half or so). When you're having a party the short feature is really nice, as people don't get bored waiting for each other to finish, and there's a quick turnaround of people singing! The scoring is also lots of fun, with 'golden notes' to hit, and an X-factor-esque rating metre at the end.

The included mic is high-quality, although the extention lead could be longer. Just a minor gripe about an otherwise really fun and social Wii game.