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Fri, 1st Jan 2010
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Sing It: Pop Hits is the latest offering from the Disney’s Sing It line-up. There are 30 tracks on board that include hits from Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, her alter ego Hannah Montana, Vanessa Hudgens, and the Jonas Brothers. If you don’t know who these people are, or you’re rolling your eyes, then you’re definitely not in the target tween demographic for this title. Is it worth buying? I think so. Despite my initial inhibitions about singing along to Disney-channel favourites adored by 11-year-olds, it didn’t take long until I was having a (really) good time of it. So you can imagine how much the younger audience will enjoy it.The objective is to sing in tune and at the correct pitch to earn points. You can sing solo, team up for duets, or battle in multiplayer mode. Plus you can record and play back performances – pretty standard stuff for this genre. However a fabulous addition is the enhanced ‘Sing It Pro’ mode, where you participate in vocal exercises from breathing, to pitch accuracy to improve your singing performance. The tutor is Disney Channel’s preppy Tiffany Thornton, who is utterly charming and encouraging (even when you suck). The level of skill required to get through these lessons increases and is actually quite challenging, which is a good thing. As you progress through your goals you can earn pins and themes to customise your console wallpaper, which is cool if that’s your kind of thing. These are also achieved with excellent singing performances in the other modes. The graphics are good, and the menu system a delight to navigate. Now for a minor gripe: microphone volume can’t be adjusted during a game, but rather only in the main menu, which is annoying. I also lament the fact that the 30-track game can’t be extended with downloadable store tunes (it’s not a Nintendo Wi-Fi title at any rate). Regardless, it’s still a good’un and I liked Disney Sing It: Pop Hits a lot.