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SingStar Legends

Published By: Tristan Clark On: 15/11/2006 10:00
Rating: PG Difficulty: Easy Learning Curve: 15 Min

THE SCOREBOARD

8.5
Great

Gameplay	8.5	"We sing until our lungs collapse."
Graphics	5.0
Sound	9.0
Value	7.5

By Tristan Clark

It’s hard not to sound like a broken record when it comes to reviewing SingStar games. They’re all pretty much identical, except for the song lineup, so it all boils down to your particular taste in music, and whether it lines up with the latest collection of tracks.

In the case of SingStar Legends, it’s definitely my kind of SingStar. It boasts what is arguably the highest quality lineup of songs in the series, with a greater number of well-known classics and a surprisingly small number of obscure tracks. Highlights include Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’, U2’s ‘Vertigo’, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, and (surprisingly) John Farnham’s ‘You’re the Voice’. If you’re a SingStar fan, you may as well skip the rest of this review and go straight to the song lineup; nothing else about Legends is any different from previous titles. However, if you’re new to the series, Legends is an excellent SingStar to start with; it contains all sorts of well-known classics that you’re bound to have heard of.

Essentially, SingStar rates your singing ability based on the key and notes rather than the pitch. This means you can sing, for example, a high-pitched song in a low voice, just so long as you get the key and notes right. This is fortunate, as trying to hit some of the high notes (if you’ve got a deep voice) or the low notes (if you’ve got a high voice) would be near impossible otherwise.

The most fun with SingStar can be had when competing against other people. If you can get a group together who don’t mind making asses of themselves, you’ll find rivalries will spring up over certain songs very quickly. You can also play a party game called Pass the Mic, which allows for two teams of up to four players, and goes through a series of game modes before tallying up the points at the end.

In the end, it’s all about the songs – there haven’t been any changes to the basic formula since SingStar Pop, the third iteration, came along. The song list below is (in my opinion at least) the strongest yet, and shouldn’t be missed if you’re a fan of, well, good music.
1. Aretha Franklin - Respect
2. Black Sabbath - Paranoid
3. David Bowie - Life on Mars
4. Dusty Springfield - Son Of A Preacher Man
5. Elton John - Rocket Man
6. Elvis Presley - Blue Suede Shoes
7. Jackie Wilson - Reet Petite
8. John Lennon - Imagine
9. Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire
10. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
11. Madonna - Papa Don't Preach
12. Marvin Gaye - I Heard it Through the Grapevine
13. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
14. Pet Shop Boys - Always On My Mind
15. Sam Cooke - Wonderful World
16. The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back
17. The Monkees - Daydream Believer
18. The Police - Roxanne
19. The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
20. Tina Turner - What's Love Got To Do With It?
21. U2 - Vertigo
22. Whitney Houston - The Greatest Love Of All
23. Jimmy Barnes - No Second Prize
24. Jimmy Barnes - Working Class Man
25. John Farnham - You're The Voice
26. John Paul Young - Love Is In The Air
27. Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning
28. Silverchair - Tomorrow
29. The Angels - No Secrets
30. The Easybeats - Friday On My Mind