SingStar Celebration Review - Glorious glory and SingStar Ultimate Party

lyra.roberge (56)in #gaming • 7 years ago (edited)

In Japan, karaoke is one of the most popular leisure activities. You will find a karaoke bar on almost every corner. With SingStar, Sony wants to make that joint singing feast available to the rest of the world. In this SingStar Celebration review you can read if Sony succeeds in successfully transferring this party.

With three dozen of different releases, the SingStar franchise is indispensable in game history. For years it was the way to get a complete karaoke experience. That fame has unfortunately not been there for years with just one earlier release on the PlayStation 4. Does SingStar Celebration know how to reach the glory of the past?

Singing with your phone

The reason that Sony comes with a new SingStar is the PlayLink series . You can play SingStar Celebration with a smartphone by downloading the corresponding application. So you do not need extra microphones to start a party at home. You simply sing in a phone that registers your singing in the game, something that was already possible in the previous part, SingStar Ultimate Party.

Although it is of course handy that you can use a phone, you will immediately notice that it is less of a pop star feeling than when you have a physical microphone. With the real microphones of the previous parts, you immediately feel inclined to go everywhere, even though you know perfectly well that you can not mimic those of Adele. A telephone feels uncomfortable in that hand, so that feeling is left out. If you still have microphones you can use them fortunately.

What works very handy is that you can already put songs in a playlist on your phone when you are not singing. This way everyone can permanently add a song to the list that automatically passes by. This is in practice a very handy system that saves some extra effort with the controller.

Technique sometimes a bit limited

Just like in previous SingStar parts, it does not matter what you sing as long as you come close to the correct pitch. The games are therefore super accessible to everyone, even if you do not have a very good singing voice. Are you just a good singer or singer then you will probably be annoyed by the fact that the microphone is already absorbing the sound from the environment. Purebred pooping is thereby ruined when you sing along with a vocally-limited friend.

The technology on the television screen does not help to provide a more pleasant experience. The beam that indicates the pitch is clearly behind the sung text. That is very confusing when you sing a song that you do not quite know by heart. Fortunately, the bar indicates exactly what you have sung so if you know a song your score will be affected little by it.

A party list for the best singers

A party game like SingStar falls and stands with a good playlist. SingStar Celebration is equipped with 30 songs as standard. The list feels very varied with some newer hits like Hello van Adele and Wake me up from Avicii as well as some classics like Dancing Queen from ABBA. With the included list you are quickly a few hours further.

A varied list of which everyone knows a few songs is indispensable for a successful party. However, it must be said that the songs seem to have been chosen primarily for popularity, without keeping the karaoke aspect in mind. Reasonably some songs are very difficult to actually sing well. Seeing your friends go on their favorite songs brings with it its own charm.

If you have seen it with the included hits then there is the possibility to expand the playlist. The SingStore contains dozens of songs that you can buy per piece for a few euros or in a bundle for an advantageous bundle price. Unfortunately, the SingStore has not been updated in any time, so you will not find the latest hits. The last update was a year ago and that was to remove more than 600 songs.

Conclusion

So there is still something to criticize about SingStar Celebration. The glory of the karaoke series has vanished a long time ago and this part does not seem to come close to the success of the past. With 30 varied songs you can build a reasonable party but then SingStar Celebration will soon be forgotten. It is a logical addition to the PlayLink series, but one that does not do the series well.