SingStar Pop follows closely on the heels of SingStar Rocks and provides
additional karaoke tracks without making any changes to the gameplay. Since both
games are independent of each other I’ll assume that you fall into one of two
camps: those new to SingStar and Pop players interested in expanding their song
lineup. Those of you who played SingStar Pop and didn’t like it are excused from
the room.
First let’s look at how the game works for those of you new to SingStar. The
rest of you can feel free to skip ahead a bit to the section where I discuss the
new track list because you already know all there is to know about the gameplay.
SingStar Rocks is played with a microphone that plugs into the PS2’s USB port –
the game and microphone work perfectly on a PlayStation 3 if you’re lucky enough
to own that console. As a song plays the lyrics scroll across the screen in much
the same way that they do on a karaoke machine. The difference here is that
you’ll also see bars of varying length moving along with the words. These bars
indicate when you’re to sing, the length of each note, and the relative pitch of
the notes, as indicated by the position, length, and vertical position of each
bar, respectively. As you sing each note, you’ll see where your voice is in
relation to the correct note. Hit the note and you’ll fill the bar and collect
points. Miss it and you’ll see how far off you are and have the chance to try
and salvage at least part of it. Miss too many notes and you’ll fail the song.
That’s about all there is to it – this is karaoke after all. When you play the
game you’ll quickly notice that all that matters is your relative pitch and how
long you hold the notes. You can hum if you’d like, or make up your own lyrics –
as long as you hit the notes you’ll do fine.
In addition to the single player mode, there is a non-scoring practice mode
in which you can either practice the songs or just sing them for fun without
worrying about your score. There are both competitive and cooperative
multiplayer modes from friendly duets to team-based pass-the-mic races for up to
eight players. The game is at its best when played with others as karaoke is not
really a solo sport. One of the nice things about SingStar Pop is that all of
the tracks are unlocked from the start. You can get a group of friends together
and select any of the available songs without having to play your way through a
long single player mode first.
Speaking of the songs, the game comes with 36 tracks but you’d be
hard-pressed to find anyone who will enjoy all of them. If you enjoy "Take Me
Out" by Franz Ferdinand or "Helena" by My Chemical Romance, will you really be
spending any time with Britney Spears or Alicia Keys? Because of the desire to
be everything to everyone (well, except for you C&W folk), the game’s soundtrack
won’t appeal to anyone. I’d rather see a collection with all alt-rock, 80s new
wave, or teen pop than one with a few songs I really like, a bunch that are
“just OK”, and a few that I can’t stand. But then again, if you’re looking for a
party game that can be played with people who don’t really game much, you’re
pretty safe with this collection. Otherwise have a look at the label and see if
there are enough songs that you like here. Everyone’s definition of “good
music”, after all, is whatever music they happen to like.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
74%. Same game, more songs. 
