SlipperyMooseCakes on 24 December 2008
Here is my little amateur review of LIPS.
LIPS is Microsoft's karaoke game and their answer to Sony's SingStar. The core game is very similar to SS in which you have to follow a long with the song and try to hit or stay at the right pitch with the song. If you want to take the fun out of things you could just hum the whole song going up and down in pitch and you could pretty much ace any song.
There are a few games for LIPS. There is just the quick sing a song in which you can do the full or short version of the song. You can play 'Kiss', a game in which you have to basically do a duet with the other person and when you're in the heart move the microphone back at the right time so they kiss. If you do this too early or too late one of the people will get pissed off and they separate, you then try again. The next game is 'Time Bomb'. A game where you have to hit the notes right on pitch and your cup slowly fills up and when it fills up you wave the mic to pour it out on the lit fuse. You have to do this through out the song, just not once. The final game is 'Vocal Fighters'. It is just that in the name. You can play these games online with your friends that have LIPS as well.
The song selection is kind of small. You only get 40 songs right out of the box. Xbox Live doesn't have too many DL songs for LIPS as of yet but I know they just added some Holiday songs so hopefully they'll continue to update that and build that up to make the purchase more worth it. One cool feature is that you can connect your Ipod/MP3 player/Flash drive and add songs to sing to for free. The only downside to this is that the lyrics wont be there. The game can only judge pitch. It is still cool though.
The strongest part to this game would have to be the microphones. I know you have heard everybody talking about them, but they really are better than any other game's out there. First of all, they are wireless. Ace. They light up and they flicker and change to the beat of the song which is really cool to watch in the dark. To top it all off they have a gyroscope in them so you can wave it and swing it and beat it as if it were a guitar, tambourine and things of that nature. It is actually really fun and isn't is as much of a tack on as you would think. These mics will also eventually be compatible with Rock Band 2, which will be awesome.
Over all the game is entertaining for parties of if you want to get someone like your sister, mom or girlfriend into gaming. I let my girlfriend have a go at it and she loves it. The song selection is small but it has a good range of choices. From Johnny Cash to Rihanna. If you're an achievement whore this game will be perfect. Only about 5 of the achievements take some time and effort to get. The rest are literally a long the lines of "You went to your Music Selection option". Or "Sing a song for the first time". The game is a bit easy and wont be too much fun if you're playing a lone. I think it really set a good foundation for a LIPS 2 which has huge potential and could be bigger and better than SS in every way.
8/10
