Partial song list: (I'll replace this with the full song list, I did one but it's on another computer, so it'll have to wait...)
California Love (2Pac)
Jesus Walks (Kanye West)
Work It (Missy Elliott)
Gin and Juice (Snoop Dogg)
Naggin' (Ying Yang Twins)
Rubber Band Man (TI)
Hypnotize (Notorious BIG)
Push It (Salt n Pepa)
The Humpty Dance (Digital Underground)
Rapper's Delight (Sugarhill Gang)
Crank It Up (David Banner)
Hey Mama (Black Eyed Peas)
Baby Got Back (Sir Mix-a-lot)
Ante Up (remix) (MOP w/ Busta Rhymes)
Get By (Talib Kweli)
Nothing But A G Thang (Dr. Dre w/ Snoop Dogg)
Game Over (Lil' Flip)
Tipsy (J-Kwon)
Beautiful (Snoop Dogg w/ Pharrell)
Ruff Ryder Anthem (DMX)
Posse On Broadway (Sir Mix-a-lot)
Don't Believe The Hype (Public Enemy)
Still Ballin' (Nitty Remix) (2Pac)
Dear Mama (2Pac)
The Jump Off (Lil Kim ft. Mr. Cheeks)
Fix Up (Dizzee Rascal)
Beware of the Boyz (Punjabi MC ft. Jay-Z)
Get Your Freak On (Missy Elliott)
Pass The Dutch (Missy Elliott)
Dude (Beanie Man)
Express Yourself (NWA)
Wit Dre Day (Dr. Dre)
Well, I finally got my copy of this, and I have to say, in general, I kinda like it, but there are many, many annoying things about this game that will probably be dealbreakers for most. First off, so you know where I'm coming from, of the other karaoke games, I'd say that I like Singstar the most (having original artists can't be beat, the multiplayer modes are better, and the original video in the background is more entertaining than the KR moppets), but Karaoke Revolution isn't too far behind either (their covers are of high quality, all things considered, and the medley mode is a blast with friends)...I also generally love hip-hop, but I don't usually listen to mainstream hip-hop, so a lot of the song list are songs I don't know well (either not at all, or "hey I think I heard that on the radio a few times but I sure as hell don't know the lyrics")...
The song list isn't bad when you consider it has to be all things to all people, and with 40 tracks in the game, it's not a bad bargain. All songs are cover versions, and they vary in quality from "hey that's pretty close" (Nothing But A G Thang) to "WTF is this crap?" (Don't Believe The Hype)...a lot of the guide vocals only vaguely sound like the original artists, but that doesn't bother me so much since you're supposed to rap over them anyway
I would have liked to see more older tracks (like some Native Tongues stuff - De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, etc...Afrika Bambaataa's classic Planet Rock woulda been nice too...or maybe some Boogie Down Productions...) but I can understand why they focused on new stuff, as it's probably easier to sell this way...
(BTW, shame on you, Eidos, for not revealing the full songlist until the game is out!)
Now, for the bitching The graphics, on the whole, suck ass. We're talking 1st generation PS2 quality here, 60fps with frequent slowdown, single textured everything...but hey, you're not playing this for the graphics, are you? The animation is equally bad, unlike the KR approach where they scripted a set of animations for each song (with all characters performing the same animation when they perform a given song), they chose to give us a few generic animations that have nothing to do with that's going on in the song (so your character will be furiously rapping into the mic during an instrumental break...)
The interface, although resembling a traditional karaoke machine (two lines, the line you aren't on refreshes while you rap the other line) suffers from a big problem - the lyrics in hip-hop whip by so fast that it's hard to fit more than a few words on each line (since you still have to keep the words legible on a TV screen). This means that often, the line you're not rapping isn't refreshing fast enough for you to read ahead, which means you are completely screwed if you don't know the song well. Frankly, this problem would not be solved by changing to the KR-style scrolling text in my opinion, it would scroll by so fast that a fair number of people would have trouble reading it in time (not to mention how illegible it would be on a display device with a mediocre refresh, like an LCD projector)...the only solution I can think of is to use 3-4 lines and have the lines scroll up so you're always rapping off the top line, but that cuts into the screen real estate for the backgrounds. (Which is fine IMHO, since the backgrounds and characters look like ass.)
The grading system is way simplified compared to Karaoke Revolution and Singstar, since there is no pitch to compare against...depending on how you're doing, it either works well or not at all. If you know the song, it works well by rewarding you when you're rocking and penalizing you when you stumble - if you don't, you're probably mumbling and slurring your words into the mic, which will net you points you really don't deserve. It's about as good as I'd expect given the technological limitations, so despite the fact that it's overall not great, I'm willing to live with it since I don't think it could be done much better at this point in time...this is based on playing on easy which is fairly forgiving - I'll give the harder grading scales a try to see if that helps to fix this problem.
Now, the actual point scoring system is seriously broken in this game. Points are "dollars" earned, and these scale depending on what level you are playing in. So if you're playing multiplayer and you choose a small venue, the scores might be around $5000 each...but if you play the last "world tour" arena, you'll earn $2-3 million in that game. This may be "realistic" but it's really messed up when you consider that your scores effectively lose precision on the earlier stages, which means you'll probably end up playing on the arena the most, which means you only really get to see one background Points (at least from what I can tell) are not scaled the way they are in KR and Singstar, where a perfect rendition of a song nets you ~50000 points or 10000 points, respectively - you seem to get higher scores on longer songs with more phrases, which means you can't really compare your relative performance from song to song. They should have normalized the scoring system and disabled the scaling by venue size for multiplayer...
So, should you buy this game? If you like karaoke/karaoke games, love hip-hop, are familiar with most of the tracks in the tracklist, and have friends to play with, you might have a good time with this. There are a lot of multiplayer modes (including a freestyle mode which I haven't tried yet) and I could see this being a fun party game with the right crowd. If you don't have any one of the above, I'd give this a miss, although if you meet most of the criteria, it might be a good one to pick up secondhand. I personally enjoy trying to see if I can perform the songs (to my satisfaction of course) so I have to say that in general, I still like it despite its flaws.
A few more random notes:
All the songs are censored, but have ###'s where the naughty words should be. Yes, you get points for saying those bad, bad words!
Rapper's Delight is cut down significantly, at least two verses are missing, which is understandable since the original was like 12 minutes long
The bundle comes with a real Logitech karaoke mic, with a Get On Da Mic logo on it and an Eidos logo on the A/D wart on the cable Could be worth picking up if you're having trouble finding a USB karaoke mic (they are kinda hard to find, although buy.com had some a few months ago...), or if you want an extra for the duet mode in the upcoming Karaoke Revolution 3
California Love (2Pac)
Jesus Walks (Kanye West)
Work It (Missy Elliott)
Gin and Juice (Snoop Dogg)
Naggin' (Ying Yang Twins)
Rubber Band Man (TI)
Hypnotize (Notorious BIG)
Push It (Salt n Pepa)
The Humpty Dance (Digital Underground)
Rapper's Delight (Sugarhill Gang)
Crank It Up (David Banner)
Hey Mama (Black Eyed Peas)
Baby Got Back (Sir Mix-a-lot)
Ante Up (remix) (MOP w/ Busta Rhymes)
Get By (Talib Kweli)
Nothing But A G Thang (Dr. Dre w/ Snoop Dogg)
Game Over (Lil' Flip)
Tipsy (J-Kwon)
Beautiful (Snoop Dogg w/ Pharrell)
Ruff Ryder Anthem (DMX)
Posse On Broadway (Sir Mix-a-lot)
Don't Believe The Hype (Public Enemy)
Still Ballin' (Nitty Remix) (2Pac)
Dear Mama (2Pac)
The Jump Off (Lil Kim ft. Mr. Cheeks)
Fix Up (Dizzee Rascal)
Beware of the Boyz (Punjabi MC ft. Jay-Z)
Get Your Freak On (Missy Elliott)
Pass The Dutch (Missy Elliott)
Dude (Beanie Man)
Express Yourself (NWA)
Wit Dre Day (Dr. Dre)
Well, I finally got my copy of this, and I have to say, in general, I kinda like it, but there are many, many annoying things about this game that will probably be dealbreakers for most. First off, so you know where I'm coming from, of the other karaoke games, I'd say that I like Singstar the most (having original artists can't be beat, the multiplayer modes are better, and the original video in the background is more entertaining than the KR moppets), but Karaoke Revolution isn't too far behind either (their covers are of high quality, all things considered, and the medley mode is a blast with friends)...I also generally love hip-hop, but I don't usually listen to mainstream hip-hop, so a lot of the song list are songs I don't know well (either not at all, or "hey I think I heard that on the radio a few times but I sure as hell don't know the lyrics")...
The song list isn't bad when you consider it has to be all things to all people, and with 40 tracks in the game, it's not a bad bargain. All songs are cover versions, and they vary in quality from "hey that's pretty close" (Nothing But A G Thang) to "WTF is this crap?" (Don't Believe The Hype)...a lot of the guide vocals only vaguely sound like the original artists, but that doesn't bother me so much since you're supposed to rap over them anyway
I would have liked to see more older tracks (like some Native Tongues stuff - De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, etc...Afrika Bambaataa's classic Planet Rock woulda been nice too...or maybe some Boogie Down Productions...) but I can understand why they focused on new stuff, as it's probably easier to sell this way...(BTW, shame on you, Eidos, for not revealing the full songlist until the game is out!)
Now, for the bitching
The graphics, on the whole, suck ass. We're talking 1st generation PS2 quality here, 60fps with frequent slowdown, single textured everything...but hey, you're not playing this for the graphics, are you? The animation is equally bad, unlike the KR approach where they scripted a set of animations for each song (with all characters performing the same animation when they perform a given song), they chose to give us a few generic animations that have nothing to do with that's going on in the song (so your character will be furiously rapping into the mic during an instrumental break...)The interface, although resembling a traditional karaoke machine (two lines, the line you aren't on refreshes while you rap the other line) suffers from a big problem - the lyrics in hip-hop whip by so fast that it's hard to fit more than a few words on each line (since you still have to keep the words legible on a TV screen). This means that often, the line you're not rapping isn't refreshing fast enough for you to read ahead, which means you are completely screwed if you don't know the song well. Frankly, this problem would not be solved by changing to the KR-style scrolling text in my opinion, it would scroll by so fast that a fair number of people would have trouble reading it in time (not to mention how illegible it would be on a display device with a mediocre refresh, like an LCD projector)...the only solution I can think of is to use 3-4 lines and have the lines scroll up so you're always rapping off the top line, but that cuts into the screen real estate for the backgrounds. (Which is fine IMHO, since the backgrounds and characters look like ass.)
The grading system is way simplified compared to Karaoke Revolution and Singstar, since there is no pitch to compare against...depending on how you're doing, it either works well or not at all. If you know the song, it works well by rewarding you when you're rocking and penalizing you when you stumble - if you don't, you're probably mumbling and slurring your words into the mic, which will net you points you really don't deserve. It's about as good as I'd expect given the technological limitations, so despite the fact that it's overall not great, I'm willing to live with it since I don't think it could be done much better at this point in time...this is based on playing on easy which is fairly forgiving - I'll give the harder grading scales a try to see if that helps to fix this problem.
Now, the actual point scoring system is seriously broken in this game. Points are "dollars" earned, and these scale depending on what level you are playing in. So if you're playing multiplayer and you choose a small venue, the scores might be around $5000 each...but if you play the last "world tour" arena, you'll earn $2-3 million in that game. This may be "realistic" but it's really messed up when you consider that your scores effectively lose precision on the earlier stages, which means you'll probably end up playing on the arena the most, which means you only really get to see one background
Points (at least from what I can tell) are not scaled the way they are in KR and Singstar, where a perfect rendition of a song nets you ~50000 points or 10000 points, respectively - you seem to get higher scores on longer songs with more phrases, which means you can't really compare your relative performance from song to song. They should have normalized the scoring system and disabled the scaling by venue size for multiplayer...So, should you buy this game? If you like karaoke/karaoke games, love hip-hop, are familiar with most of the tracks in the tracklist, and have friends to play with, you might have a good time with this. There are a lot of multiplayer modes (including a freestyle mode which I haven't tried yet) and I could see this being a fun party game with the right crowd. If you don't have any one of the above, I'd give this a miss, although if you meet most of the criteria, it might be a good one to pick up secondhand. I personally enjoy trying to see if I can perform the songs (to my satisfaction of course) so I have to say that in general, I still like it despite its flaws.
A few more random notes:
All the songs are censored, but have ###'s where the naughty words should be. Yes, you get points for saying those bad, bad words!
Rapper's Delight is cut down significantly, at least two verses are missing, which is understandable since the original was like 12 minutes long
The bundle comes with a real Logitech karaoke mic, with a Get On Da Mic logo on it and an Eidos logo on the A/D wart on the cable
Could be worth picking up if you're having trouble finding a USB karaoke mic (they are kinda hard to find, although buy.com had some a few months ago...), or if you want an extra for the duet mode in the upcoming Karaoke Revolution 3 