I don’t want to laud myself asa singing game expertor anything, but I must admit that I’m eying Microsoft’s casual-gamer baitLipswith a measure of curiosity. It’s quite clear that MS expectsLipsto net it some of the mainstream appeal it wants so badly, but it remains to be seen whether or not this will put the Xbox 360 in a position to compete with the Wii. Something tells me Nintendoisn’tlosing sleep over it.
Nevertheless, as Christmas draws near, you can expect to hear you ever wanted, and we’ll be doing little to stem the flow. Forty songshave been revealedfor the karaoke game, including Ah-Ha’s “Take On Me” and Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus.” The game will retail for $69.99 with two wireless, motion-sensitive microphones. The motion sensing will create on-screen music videos by mirroring your movements while characters lip-sync with you. Kind of neat, actually.
As far as game modes go, we kick off with Freestyle Mode, which lets you plug in an MP3 player and use your own music … provided of course it’s DRM-free. Because they’re your own songs, lyrics will not appear on-screen. A small price to pay to finally get some Electric Light Orchestra into one of these games.
The various Party Modes include a Vocal Fighters sing-off in which players compete to win fans or get the boot offstage, Time Bomb, where friends must sing together in order to push back a ticking bomb, and the saucy Kiss, where players have to “hit the notes and gestures together [and then] meet in the middle to share a kiss.” There’s more after the jump, including a full tracklist, so hit it.
Some extra bullet-point notes:
Finally, here’s the full tracklist. Most of it’s crap, with a scant few gems thrown in:
You know, I have to confess that this actually looks quite promising. At the very least, it’s not going down theRock Band/Guitar Herosqueaky plastic toy saturation road. I’m going to be paying more attention to this one from now on because you never know, it might not suck at all!
