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| Source // PlayStation |
When your mates kick you out of your Rock Band, fear not, Sony has your back, so long as you've got some microphones and/or a camera and a copy of SingStar, and a desire to have machines and code judge your warbling for all within sight of the TV to see.
I don't, of course. Neither the desire, nor the microphones, nor SingStar in any form, of which it's hard for me to pin down just what it is. It doesn't quite look like a standalone game, certainly not in its latest form. Looks like more of a service where you pick and choose what to 'sing along to' according to your own tastes.
I bet the moneymen love that. Let's find out what I'm missing, then.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Frustrations
Oh, no, look. I'll never be able to sing along with... Duran Duran was it?... and have my vocal pitch analysed and scored by some computer algorithms. Shame. I'll just have to sing along to this song like normal people who don't care about accuracy, taste, or competency with singing, and be judged only by who is present in the same room at the same time.
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| Source // PlayStation |
At its heart, SingStar is 'just' that. Here is a song and its music video, here are the lyrics, here are your targets, go get 'em. Didn't do so well? Try again, I guess. You like the song, why not?
Certainly, you can gamify the act of singing, I don't doubt that. I just wonder why you ever would, but the answer is obvious: some people will go mad for it, and mad people make other people money.
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| Source // PlayStation |
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| Source // PlayStation |
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| Source // PlayStation |
I don't know which version of SingStar I'm looking at here, but it looks less like a game and more like a service, and when you nudge yourself over to the SingStore and see all the new songs you could be singing along to for the low, low price of... well, nothing, now, because the servers were all shut down at the start of this year. Hopefully, you all had enough rubbish to sing along to during lockdown.
Where was I? Yeah, SingStar as a service meant attracting folks to chip in just a little bit here and there for a quick reward of a fun song to listen to and sing along with, and more social media features prompted users to upload photos and videos of them and their friends - because of course you can duet - doing your best with such and such a song.
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| Source // PlayStation |
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| Source // PlayStation |
As I said, you can duet or battle, and even rope in a whole group of people in some modes on some games for some songs, I don't have a clue how it works, you know that. Sing into this, score on that, have a laugh and move on with your lives.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Final Word
Like Rock Band, I've no intention to rush out to my local CeX and buy dirty microphones to sing along to songs I like. I can just sing along to songs I like, and have P2 judge me, as I would her. We don't need to be scored on our efforts, we don't need the satisfaction of a song well done.
Enough people do, though, for the game to stretch over a decade across its many forms. It may even come back, for all I know, though the wording on its Wikipedia entry does come across as somewhat definitive in its closure.
You can still play offline content. Woo? I'm sure there were some good tunes mixed in with some right old duffers in the default song lists. Your mileage will vary, and more so with the hassle it'll take to play SingStar these days. Why bother setting all that up? Just sing already. Or try to. You don't need a game, do you?
Fun Facts
The technology behind SingStar is more complex than you might think, and early designs would have seen it used in kids games to sing along with animals on a safari. I might have been more interested in that game, to be honest, gimmick or not.
SingStar, developed by London Studio, first released in 2004.