I love a good sing song but I would never have the confidence to get up in a kareoke bar and make a fool of myself so Sing Star has enabled me to make a fool of myself but within the comfort of my own home! It is a fantastic game which I have enjoyed for many years now and this Pop edition one is great as it has loads of tracks which are great to sing along to!

What is Sing Star?

Sing Star is a karaoke game made for Play Stations consoles. It is cleverly made so that you sing along with songs and are marked on your performance as the technology is able to pick up on how accurately you sang the songs. There are various options to choose from when playing this game so that you can either just sing solo, as a battle or as a duet and so forth meaning that you can play alone or with friends. It is a game which is full of fun and although it says suitable from 12 years plus I think younger children can enjoy it too. It is the kind of game which comes out when you are at a house party and you are all comfortable with each other and want to have a bit of fun and a laugh although I'm sure you can take it more seriously if you choose to! There are various packs you can buy which have different songs on them (they usually have about 20 tracks although some have less and some have more) and are of a particular genre. You will need the special microphones that come with this pack and they are transferable to all of the SingStar games so you do only need to buy them once.


The microphones

The microphones can be wireless or with wires that plug into your console. We have the wireless ones as they just make it easier so you don't have wires trailing across the floor and it's easier to pass them around to various people if you are singing with a group/at a party. There are only two microphones as this game is really designed to just have one or two people singing at a time but there is no reason why you can't hold the microphone in the middle of a couple of you and then sing into it together. Perhaps it would be a good idea for them to bring out a 'band' edition where you need more microphones and have to work on harmonies though... Anyway the wireless microphones are easy to work, you just flick up a switch so that the console registers them and away you go! Each microphone is black and quite heavy as they are good quality and one has a blue ring around it and another red. This is so that if you assign a microphone to a player you will be able to work out who should be singing into which one. I find that the microphones work really well, they do amplify your voice but they don't crackle and echo like some can and they can be used like you would any microphone- by moving it away a bit if you're singing a 'big' note. They can be bought separately or along with a game pack.


Songs

A list of the songs available in this game pack are:
Alphabeat 10.000 Nights Of Thunder
Amy Winehouse Rehab
Black Kids I'm Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance
Bon Jovi Livin' On A Prayer
Chris Brown With You
Chris De Burgh Lady In Red
Cyndi Lauper True Colors
Gloria Estefan Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
Jordin Sparks feat. Chris Brown No Air
Kaiser Chiefs Never Miss A Beat
Kate Nash Mouthwash
Kings Of Leon Sex On Fire
Klaxons Gravity's Rainbow
Little Jackie The World Should Revolve Around Me
N*E*R*D Sooner Or Later
P!nk So What!
Queen Bohemian Rhapsody [DSCIMG]
Robbie Williams Angels
Robyn Be Mine
Rockwell Somebody's Watching Me
Sam Sparro Black And Gold
Solange I Decided
Sugababes Girls
The Feeling Rose
The Killers Human
The Police Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
The Script The Man Who Can't Be Moved
Will Young Changes
will.i.am Feat Cheryl Cole Heartbreaker
Yazoo Don't Go

So as you can see you get a good variety of tracks, some which are very modern and others that are much older, all of which though are good, cheesy pop songs that you can enjoy singing along to and making a fool of yourself with! I like how there is something for everyone. When I look at the tracks there are some I don't know and some which I don't like but at the same time some of these appeal to other people that I play with so it's good that things appeal to everyone.

So above are the tracks that come on the game but you can also purchase some more by using the online function on Playstation 3 and going to the Sing Store. Within this store you can buy more tracks to add to your fun!



Playing

When you play this game it's really easy to do and very fun too. As you sing along to the songs the official videos play along on the screen along with the lyrics and little tabs which light up beneath the words you are about to sing. These tabs give you an indication of how long you need to hold the note for and whether or not the pitch is higher or lower as they appear on a score line. You do not need to be able to read music to understand this, it's a very simple concept which is easy to pick up. As you sing a note the tab lights up (red if you are on the red microphone and blue if you are on the blue one) and will let you know if you hit it correctly- it will be above or below the tab if you missed the pitch and it will only light up when you come in- so if you start a word half way through then it will register that you missed your cue or if you can't hold the note all the way it won't light up all the way along the tab. At the end of each score line you get a word 'awful' 'good' etc which gives you an indication of how well you did. Some notes you get extra points for- if they are very long or high ones for example and these shimmer and light up with stars if you hit them correctly! This is always fun to do as you really want those extra points!

Whilst you are singing you can see your points accumulating on a score line at the top of the screen which is discreetly out of the way so it won't distract you from the game. This score line is green if you are doing well but gets gradually darker to red if you do badly. At the end of the song your score is added up and you are graded in terms of how well you did; the worst being 'tone deaf' the best being 'hit artist'. It also shows you how well you have compared to other people, or yourself, on the leaderboard from when you have last sang the song.

It is very easy to load this game up and play it. There is no long winded introduction and it is very easy to go through the song lists and choose which one you like. What I like about it is that when you go to a song it will begin to play a clip of it, this is really useful as sometimes I don't think I know the song but I just scroll over it and the chorus will play and instantly job my memory! This is a very good feature to have. It is also very easy to select what kind of way you want to sing the game. We usually do duets if there are more than one of us and we then have a big debate as to who will sing which part but it's always so much fun singing as a duet instead of people singing solos or 'passing the mic'.

You can select the level of difficulty too. This doesn't change how the song appears or anything like that but it changes how large the tabs are on the scores which you have to hit. It basically means the scoring will be more lenient if you don't quite hit the note! I usually just have it on the 'medium' setting and don't bother to use easy or hard so that it's a middle ground.

When I play this on my own I find that I sing about six songs and then grow bored but when I have friends round and we get this out we can have it on for hours as we try different combinations of people singing and different songs etc. It really is the kind of game which you get the best out of in a group but like I say there is no reason why you can't enjoy this on your own especially if you want to really go for it and don't want anyone else to hear you!

I really enjoy playing this game. I don't have many PS3 games because I am not the kind of person who likes to stare at a television screen and I really like board games but this is one game that I do enjoy playing and think it's a great way to get everyone involved. When we play this there is often a couple of generations together and we can all enjoy playing it which is great. Oh and a good feature is that you can turn down the volume of your microphone so you are not overpowering and singing louder than the track which is something I like to do so that it doesn't sound quite as karaoke!

The sing store I mentioned earlier has some other tracks that you can download and purchase which is a good feature to have although I usually just stick to the ones on this game as there is enough variety for me. If you are likely to play regularly though you will want to expand the play lists so that you don't become bored of singing the same tracks so this does make the sing store a very good feature.

There are other game packs available with different themes such as Take That and Motown so whatever your music tastes you should be able to find something which suits you. They are available on Amazon and this pack currently retails at £27.99 so really quite expensive in my eyes but a good game to have in your house to get out at party times so worth it.