Lips: Xbox 360 Review

Posted February 20, 2009 by Charles McManamy in Reviews, Xbox 360.

One of the ongoing game franchises for the Playstation is the Singstar series of karaoke games. Lips is Microsoft’s initial attempt to appeal to that portion of the gaming market and the game is somewhat successful in this respect. However in other respects it is lacking in areas that are surprising for an Xbox 360 game.

Initial impressions of the game are fairly positive though, beginning with the pair of wireless microphones that are provided with the game. They both look and appear well built and have built in LEDs that flash while singing with some motion detection built in for good measure. The only drawback to the microphones is that they are not currently compatible with other music games. Though this may be addressed with a patch for Rockband 2, there is a good chance future music games will be compatible with the microphones from the day of release.

The next thing that Lips does right has to do with the choice of “starter songs,” as there is a good range of songs included with the game, and almost everyone should find that they like at least a few of the 40 songs that are provided. Similarly the ability to import your own songs from those stored on your Xbox 360 hard drive or compatible MP3 player is a good feature. While these songs do lack video or lyrics, it is still a nice feature to have in the game. This does bring me onto the first serious negative of the game though, which is that at the moment, there is a serious lack of songs to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace. While new songs are regularly being added to the marketplace, at the current rate it will be a few years before there is a decent song library available.

Moving on to the game play, as you would expect from a karaoke game it is fairly limited, though Lips does a good enough job for what it is. There are also a few different game play styles available, including a range of co-op and “battle” modes for when you have friends over. The microphones’ motion sensing abilities also come into play; you have to make the correct motion which will activate score multipliers. This is similar to star power in the Guitar Hero games. The automated scoring system is quite easy to cheat however, as holding the microphone to the speaker can net you fabulous results and sometimes whistling can get you better scores than singing, but I can forgive Lips for this, as I doubt there will be any game for at least a few years that can accurately judge how well you sing a song.

Where Lips is seriously lacking is in online features, as the only type of online “multiplayer” involves challenging a friend to beat your score on a song. For a game on a console that prides itself in the strength of its online gaming, this is a surprising deficiency. I expected online versions of the offline multiplayer modes to be present since the Rockband and Guitar Hero games have demonstrated that it can be done. There is also no utilisation of the Xbox Live Vision camera, so there is no recording and uploading of short clips of yourself as there is in the Singstar games. It should be noted that there is a similar feature included with You’re In The Movies on the Xbox 360 so it can be done and hopefully will be in any sequel.

If Lips is looked at as a first entry into the karaoke market, then there is enough present to suggest that the game can be built upon. Additional features added in a sequel could turn Lips into a viable franchise, however only time will tell. As a stand alone game for the Xbox 360 it is a decent enough party game and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a karaoke game for their Xbox 360.

 

Tagged as iNiS, karaoke, Lips, Microsoft