Singstar Volume 2 – PS3

When Singstar first came out for the PlayStation seemingly eons ago, Sony marketed the title squarely at a family audience, targeting young children with a selection of modern pop and brilliantly easy controls. What happened next was legendary, adults, yes 95% of drunken adults found Singstar and made it into a phenomenon. The ultimate karaoke franchise was born.

Sony has shaped and crafted the Singstar series into such a fine art that each successive game is designed with the ultimate party in mind and Singstar Volume 2 is no exception. Sure there is a little bit of tweaking to the modes, adding a relatively successful duet mode, but the basic Singstar that every drunken George Michael wannabe loves remains precisely the same.

The outcome of how commercially successful volume two will be (despite its much stronger track listing including The Killers “When We Were Young”, Radiohead’s “Street Spirit” and Nirvana’s “Lithuim”) is a big question. Especially with the ability to pick and choose what tracks you’d like to be singing and the option to build your own massive library where you don’t have to deal with “Panic at the Disco.” Is there any need for physical sequels when the PSN has every song at the consumer’s fingertips?

Leaving that question hanging, Singstar Volume 2 is a beautiful thing; the high-def menus and videos are so gorgeous it’s a shame to play them in anything less than the highest resolution possible and on the biggest LCD out there.  The sound, the tracks, the whole package is as crisp a next-generation experience there is.

Singstar proves that these types of games (like Rock Band and Guitar Hero) are far-and-away the most accessible and player-friendly out there and while your Grand Theft Auto and Bioshock games may offer a more satisfying singular experience, nothing can quite match sharing your video game love with others.