Karaoke Revolution Party: The fourth edition of the wildly popular series finally comes to the gamecube. Is it any good?
KARAOKE REVOLUTION PARTY
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Publisher: Konami
Developer: Harmonix Music
Release Date: November 8th 2005
Platform: PS2, Xbox, Gamecube
This game is a blast to play, and I would recommend to ANYONE that they at least give it a shot... Here’s why:
There are allot of great games out there, but few have been able to break free of the core and mainstream gaming market to appeal to non-gamers and more casual gamers… Karaoke Revolution achieves this great task by appealing to a VERY broad demographic of people… Young teenagers, young adults, adults, older adults, male, female,… it doesn’t matter! There are people in EVERY SINGLE category that enjoy this game… This game rises above the anxiety that non gamers get when they see a complicated controller with all those buttons… instead they see a microphone, they see someone singing… they see words going across the screen, and they say… “hey! I can handle this! THIS LOOKS FUN! I want to try it!” And they do try it! Already, (in just the few days that I’ve owned this game) I have seen several people that don’t normally like video games pick up the mic and start singing, and laughing, and having a great time! This game is TREMENDOUSLY popular at colleges… It’s not uncommon to go to a party and see a crowd of people standing around a large screen television with the music cranked up and people taking turns trying to out sing each other… (You can even have the game judge up to 8 people to see who did better while declaring someone the winner) Anyway… the game is popular… and it has seen four versions thus far… This is the first time however, that the game has been made available to Gamecube owners.
Seeing how I am a Gamecube owner, and that is the version that I have purchased, my review will be based on that game. The game comes with a microphone. It’s the same one that Mario Party 6 and 7 use… (It plugs into the memory card slot) And if you already have a mic from one of those games, you can plug them both in to sing duet songs.
The game is very simple, yet very deep and satisfying to play. You start off with about 95% of the songs unlocked right from the start, so there is nothing to keep you from having a Karaoke party the day you get the game… But there are tons of OTHER unlockables that will keep you playing long after the party is over.
How does it work?
Well, its quite simple… You select a character to play as (which is fully customizable) and you choose a song. Choose how tough you want it to judge you, and then your ready to start singing… (there is even a simple interactive training lesson that you can select that will explain how the game works)
The words move along the bottom of the screen accompanied by what Harmonix (the developer) calls “note tubes”. Those are the bars you see going across the bottom of the screen. The note tubes represent the correct pitch for that part of the song… As you sing, and Arrow will appear on the left side that shows your current pitch… Get the pitch arrow, and the note tube to align, and your singing on key. Good job!
There are different difficulties you can select, from easy to expert that will give you less leeway on your pitch forcing you to be as accurate as possible… If you get a perfect score on the perfect difficulty setting, you are singing EXACTLY like the artist of the song…
There is also a sing and dance mode which uses the DDR dance mat where DDR arrows scroll across the bottom of the screen as well… BOTH the DDR difficulty AND the singing difficulty can be adjusted independently to suit your needs… or you can sing while your friend dances… or whatever you want… (controllers may also be used in substitution for the dance mat)
Song list
This is pretty self explanatory, the ones with a “*” are songs that have to be unlocked…
1. Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes - (I've Had) The Time of my Life
2. Aretha Franklin - (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
3. Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell - Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing
4. The Temptations - Ain't Too Proud to Beg
5. Atlantic Starr - Always
6. Lenny Kravitz - American Woman
7. The Commodores - Brick House*
8. Blondie - Call Me
9. Aerosmith - Crazy
10. Beyonce - Crazy In Love
11. Culture Club - Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
12. Incubus - Drive
13. Kansas - Dust in the Wind
14. Lionel Richie and Diana Ross - Endless Love
15. The Police - Every Little Thing She Does is Magic
16. Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World
17. Michelle Branch - Everywhere
18. Irene Cara - Fame
19. Hilary Duff - Fly
20. Monica - For You I Will
21. Whitney Houston - Greatest Love of All*
22. Trapt - Headstrong
23. Whitesnake - Here I Go Again
24. Gavin DeGraw - I Don't Want To Be
25. Tony Bennett - I Left My Heart in San Francisco
26. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - I Love Rock and Roll
27. Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You
28. Tonic - If You Could Only See
29. Edwin McCain - I'll Be*
30. Madonna - Material Girl
31. Janis Joplin - Me and Bobby Mcgee*
32. Jimmy Eat World - Pain
33. Ashlee Simpson - Pieces of Me
34. Wild Cherry - Play that Funky Music
35. Rolling Stones - Start Me Up
36. Stevie Wonder - Superstition
37. Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline
38. A-Ha - Take On Me
39. Bachman Turner Overdrive - Takin' Care Of Business*
40. Dean Martin - That's Amore
41. Santana f/Michelle Branch - The Game Of Love
42. Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time
43. Fantasia - Truth Is
44. Vicki Sue Robinson - Turn the Beat Around
45. Nat King Cole - Unforgettable
46. Billy Joel - Uptown Girl
47. Foreigner - Waiting For A Girl Like You*
48. The Romantics - What I Like About You
49. Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now
50. Queen - You're My Best Friend
Its quite a song list that has ALLOT of variety and appeals to allot of different people.
Game modes
-Quick play: pick a character, pick a song, pick a location, pick a difficulty, and just play.
-One mic party: (for 2-8 people)
--Single song: Each player picks a song and tries to score higher than the others
--Medley: Pick up to five songs (or random) and sing only the most popular and familiar sections of those songs… sung back to back.
--(There is more, but I cant remember them right now…)
-Two mic party: (a variety of competitive and cooperative play modes)
--Duets:
--Duet medley:
--Knock out:
--Knock out medley:
--Sing off
--Mini games
--KR challenge
-Sing and Dance: (use the mic and the dance pad to your favorite songs)
-Character Creator: (in depth fully customizable characters with additional unlockables)
-Karaoke: (Just classic Karaoke, no judging, just sing however you want to)
-Extra: (Unlockable progress, trophies, training, high scores…)
In conclusion…
This game is fun… it becomes even more fun when you have a group of people playing it! The more the better! It’s a party game. Its fun to try to sing the songs exactly like they are sung by the artist… but if you want classic Karaoke you can choose that mode and use your own artistic license to sing the song the way you want to…
SCORE:
GRAPHICS: 8.5 Good graphics… not breathtaking but they are much better than karaoke usually offers… does a good job of creating a good karaoke atmosphere. Create a charater is fun.
SOUND: 9.8 Near PERFECT representation of the songs and the original artists… The only way it could be better is if the had the ACTUAL recordings from the artists… (but then the game would cost like $200 or something)
CONTROL: 10 The controller (the mic) does EXACTLY what its supposed to do… the dance mat also reacts the way you would expect it to
GAMEPLAY: 9.8 I don’t know how they could make it any better… its extremely easy to pick up and use… hardly no learning curve at all…. Anyone can play it….
LASTABILITY: 9.3 With 50 songs, and tons of unlockables, there is plenty to do… even if you master the songs, there is the dance mode left to concur. Even if you master sing and dance mode, there is limitless hours of fun that can be had interacting with people at parties and trying to out-do each other in party competitions… I would recommend this game to ANYONE….
FINAL: 9.5 = Amazingly fun game. (Perfect for parties, and “non-gamers”)
If any of you have questions about this game, post here, and I will answer your questions…
You can also check out: http://www.karaokerevolution.net for a great nonofficial KR website.