Game Console

I am not much a gamer, and not a singer either. But having said that, I must add that I simply love the karaoke game Lips for XBOX 360. I saw a commercial of the game, where they played Young Folks (by Peter, Bjorn & John) and I was sold. I just had to buy the game and it was released just in time for the holiday season.

My sister and her boyfriend are SingStar champions, but now I can finally be at least an outsider. I can’t wait to compete against them. It’s a social game, fun singing alone, but so, so much better singing with others.

I guess Lips isn’t the greatest karaoke-focused game ever released, but it has enough good features and options to make it a decent Xbox 360-only answer to Sony’s massive SingStar series. As I am not the best singer, I fast noticed that the game has problems with rating your vocals. The game gave me full credit, even though I was pretty far off the mark. Ok, it’s Christmas time and hope that I will get time for practise, cause I am surely not ready to challenge other players online.

The game comes with 40 tracks that cover a good-sized range of times and genres, so there should be something for everyone! I at least found 5-6 really great songs. But I hope that Microsoft with the next version of Lips, adds 3-4 Norwegian songs too. Swedish songs are not the same!It varies a little bit what songs Lips comes with, on Wikipedia you can see the differences between countries. Another option is the option to buy extra songs online. Songs are available for either 160 or 180 MSP (Microsoft’s own currency). You can see the list of songs available on Microsoft Live Marketplace. I hope to some time be able to compare the Microsoft Live Marketplace with Sony’s SingStore, but get me right, I am not planning to buy a Playstation 3.

Lips also lets you import music via the same options you have to play your own music in most other games. You can pull songs from portable devices, play them from your 360′s hard drive, or even stream them over your local network (Windows Media Center or Connect 360). Just that it isn’t the same as playing the songs built for the game, since you won’t get on-screen lyrics or music videos. The game will only attempt to judge your performance.

It gets better, just hold on! When you first import a song from a portable device, Lips asks you the following question:

“You’re about to use a song from your own music library. Do you want to send data about this song along with an ID associated with your Gamertag to Microsoft? By doing so you’ll cast a vote for the creation of additional content such as videos and lyrics for your favourite songs. Providing this information will also let us notify you when new content for songs in your collection is available.”

Brilliant way to combine the Xbox and Zune, and get their sales numbers going also for the Zune. Microsoft currently has a position open for “Zune Xbox“.

Just as I was about to finish this blog entry, a SingStar Vol. 3 commercial was running on TV, more or less telling me what that game has that Lips doesn’t. Not that it matters for me, but SingStar has the ability to save small videos, captured with the PlayStation Eye, and upload them for the community and your friends to see. The recording of your singing also lets you listen to your performance. Lips doesn’t have anything like this, but I guess Microsoft will catch up on Sony. I am pretty sure!