Join Ariel, Cinderella, Aladdin and the crew (Singstar Disney) (Singstar Singalong with Disney (PS2))

Member Name: Pandora321

Product:	Singstar Singalong with Disney (PS2)
Date:	17/08/09 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A couple of classics (who can resist 'The Jungle Book'?), great clips of the movies

Disadvantages: Much more difficult than you'd think, novelty wears off, better Singstar discs out there

SingStar is a PS2/PS3 karaoke-style game with marks out of 10,000 at the end of each song for your performance. There are over 20 different discs, such as ABBA, 80s, 90s, girlbands vs boybands, and Rock Ballads. There's even a Bollywood version, High School Musical discs and an RnB edition, so there really is a disc to suit everyone!! This review is of the 'Singalong with Disney' disc, which is only out as a PS2 game, although I've used it on our PS2 and PS3 and it works fine on both (you need to have at least one PS3 Singstar game to enable your PS2 games to be uploaded though).

*There is some overlap of this review and my review of the ABBA Singstar disc as they, obviously, involve the same gameplay*

~The basics of SingStar~

To start playing SingStar you need to buy the microphone additions that plug into your PS2/PS3; these can be bought either separately or in combination with a game and are good value as they are hardy - ours have lasted 4 years, including numerous parties (although we don't have any children). On inserting your game disc you have a short intro of Disney music and then the welcome screen pops up. After entering the players' names, you get to pick your style of karaoke: you can sing one-by-one, sing simultaneously against another player ('battle'), or play a range of variations on the theme in team 'pass-the-mike' style contests. We nearly always play battles, as it's less embarrassing than singing by yourself and we like competitions.

The song selection screen helpfully plays snippets of each song as you scroll through and, if you're like me, you'll probably recognise more songs than you realised from their titles. Once you've picked your song, it's time for the combatants to take to their mikes and prepare to sing.

The songs play with the music video on the screen (so for this game you get a lovely Disney movie clip). The lyrics are at the top and/or bottom of the screen for you to follow, and there are grey bars overlaying the music video in the middle of the screen. These grey bars are the notes you are supposed to be singing! They highlight in red or blue (depending on your mike colour) as you sing - the nearer your red/blue line is to the grey line the better you're singing and the more points you'll be awarded. At the end of each phrase the computer will give you a mini-grade from 'cool' to 'awful' to give you an idea of how you're doing! Each player has a score at the top of the screen, which gradually clocks up as you progress so you can see who's winning so far.

At the end of your song, the scores are counted and you get a final score screen telling you your mark out of 10,000, as well as who the winner and loser are - you each also get a SingStar grading from 'totally SingStar' via 'wannabe' to 'tone deaf'. As you can change the marking setting between easy, medium and hard, and you can clearly hear the original singer singing the song while you're singing, SingStar is actually a lot easier and, therefore, more fun than real karaoke. Finally, there are options to re-listen to your singing (it's recorded) and mess around with the recording, giving yourself alien voice effects etc. Then it's time to pick your next song...

Be warned that this game is surprisingly addictive as you keep thinking 'I can score better than that' so you try again... and again... My husband first bought me a Singstar game to cheer me up when I was feeling down. I'd never done karaoke and didn't even want to sing in front of him but once he'd convinced me to try it, I didn't stop for SIX HOURS and that was only because I was losing my voice! I've seen this effect over the years on many of my similarly competitive friends, most of whom you can't get off the mike at parties once they've got the first song under their belts.

~Tracks~

So, the all important question (it's much easier and, therefore, wiser, to sing a song you know well) - what tracks are on the disc?

Cruella De Vil - from 101 Dalmatians
A Whole New World - from Aladdin
Beauty and the Beast - from Beauty And The Beast
Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo - from Cinderella
The Work Song - from Cinderella
He's A Tramp - from Lady and the Tramp
Following The Leader - from Peter Pan
You Can Fly! - from Peter Pan
I Wonder - from Sleeping Beauty
Once Upon a Dream - from Sleeping Beauty
Son Of Man - from Tarzan
Ev'rybody Wants To Be A Cat - from The Aristocats
The Bare Necessities - from The Jungle Book
I Wan'na Be Like You - from The Jungle Book
Under the Sea - from The Little Mermaid
Kiss the Girl - from The Little Mermaid
I Just Can't Wait To Be King - from The Lion King
Circle of Life - from The Lion King
You've Got A Friend In Me - from Toy Story
Winnie the Pooh - from Winnie the Pooh

This is quite a good, wide selection from the best known Disney movies, although there are a couple of songs that I suspect only die-hard Disney fans will be familiar with.

~Overview of the 'Singalong with Disney' disc~

I would say that this is the hardest Singstar disc out of the 10 we have, which was a bit of a surprise! Although I vaguely recognised all the songs, and knew quite a few scarily well given I'm 30, singing them was a completely different matter as many of the songs are actually very difficult to sing. A few songs are impossibly high (even for someone who sang soprano at school), such as 'I Wonder' and 'The Work Song', the latter of which is the mice singing on a level of communication with bats. Similarly trying to sing the backing African chants to 'Circle of Life' produces endless amusement for anyone watching your efforts. This is not the disc to choose if you like high scores! Others, on the other hand, such as 'Following the Leader' and 'Winnie the Pooh,' are very repetitive, which quickly bored us.

I'm a massive Disney fan so I had really high hopes for this disc when we got it, but I would say, although this CD is still good fun (and there are a couple of songs I absolutely love singing), the novelty quickly wears off and people are usually put off by scoring a good 2,000-3,000 points less than they score on other Singstar discs, so switch discs pretty quickly after a couple of songs. I think that there are much better Singstar discs out there that you are more likely to keep going back to above this one.

Currently down from £19.99 to £14.66 on Amazon, this is quite a bargain so if you fancy a novel addition to your Singstar collection, or perhaps have young children who love the Disney movies and don't care too much about scores, then you may want to buy this disc. Otherwise, I'd recommend the 80s, Rocks, Rock Ballads or ABBA games as better options for long-term enjoyment.

Thanks for reading!

Summary: Only really for die-hard Disney or Singstar fans