SingStar (Solus) PS3 £17.99 Play.com
If you've ever played a PS2 SingStar game you'll know exactly how to play the new next gen version.
If anything this version is even simpler and all the options such as SingStore (allowing for additional songs to be downloaded), My Media (photos, videos and audio playbacks) taken during the game, My SingStar Online (online profile and place to store and rate your own and other media). Simply press Start and you can also access your Friends list on the XMB. Thus sending them, messages or read ones sent to yourself.
The game also allows you to change a few basic option but not enough that need to be adjusted ie menu music volume.
Before I start getting on my soapbox about how bad certain aspects of the game are I should just say this game is most fun when served to a room full of drunken family and/or friends. Hook up either a PS2 Eye-toy or PS3 Playstation Eye and the fun really begins cos you can record yourselves singing. This also takes photos during the game and shows star moments. These efforts can be uploaded and shared with the world (well Europe for the moment) or just with your friends.
You can also view you friends or anyone elses profile and rate there stuff. You should be able to comment but for some unknown reason this doesn't work.
Now I'm going to list all the issues I've found so far:
- The camera image is a mirror image of yourselves which means that logo and writing are all backwards.
- The servers are appauling and keep timing out when trying to connect to SingStore, My SingStar Online. Pages take an age to update, especially if you're uploading or downloading at the same time.
- The Meet SingStars hasn't been updated in months.
- "Hundreds of songs available to download" is what the Online page says. This is not the case the disc comes with 30 and until today there were only 41 additional tunes for download. Of which all of them have been on other discs. Which you can't use to credit your account as promised. Another 14 tunes were added today but are mainly Blur and Supergrass. Which is good for me but not for others. There is also another update planned in 3 weeks. But this is still some way off the 350 songs promised on launch.
- The game seems to have reset my network settings meaning my system is now on NAT3 which is preventing me from uploading anymore videos as I get a "FT0 Error". My PS3 now crashes when I try and change my router settings.
- I bought the Solus version meaning it doesn't come with mics. The version that does, doesn't come with the much promised Blue-tooth mics. Not a big issue for me but would have, had I spent the extra amount on somethign I already have.
- I cannot save my media to my HDD or transfer it to my PSP as promised.
There has been an offical response to some of these issues but it looks like yet again Early adopters are being used as unpaid beta testers.
Sony get your acts together you get have it both ways. By getting us to pay for something yet you expect us to test that it works.
These issues may be addressed before the US release in May but I'm not sure they will be completely ironed out. I'm expecting that SingStar 2 will be due by November and fix alot of these problems if not Sony you had better get a patch ready for one of your updates.
It's a shame that these issues have spoilt for me what should have been a beautifully seemless experience. The store is great but space and poor selection. I'm guessing greedy artists asking for more money cos they're content is being used differently than originally intended for SingStar on PS2.
It's great fun seeing some of the creative videos that people creat and has inspired us for parties to do a few special things for uploading.
