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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

Karaoke Revolution Specifics Unearthed 27

Posted by simoniker from the furthering-the-avrilution-through-karaoke dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for their hands-on preview of Karaoke Revolution, Konami's PlayStation 2 title that uses the USB headset and "...requires you to match the rhythm and pitch for the vocals in a song" (although luckily for the tone-deaf among us: "Karaoke mode allows you to just kick it to a song without having to worry about performance.") This Harmonix-developed title, originally unveiled a couple of months back, sports "more than 35 tracks in all", from Mr.Mister to Avril Lavigne, and the previewer handily points out that "Not everyone can rock a guitar or a keyboard. Not everyone can dance... but almost all of us can sing (whether the results are appealing or not is another matter)."
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Karaoke Revolution Specifics Unearthed More

Karaoke Revolution Specifics Unearthed

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  • Can you sing along with me on this tune? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Monday September 15, 2003 @07:33AM (#6962527) Journal
    This Harmonix-developed title, originally unveiled a couple of months back, sports "more than 35 tracks in all"

    Ok, I don't want to beat a tired drum, to mix a metaphor into a bad pun, but...

    Will it support any arbitrary mp3 I have?

    35 tracks is pretty scanty, and I don't want to sing along to Mr. Mister (an 80s band?).

    But I have three mp3s of "When I was a Lad" [boisestate.edu], as I have three (legally purchased) different copies of Giilbert & Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore". Now that I'd love to sing along to.

    Similarly, I have two complete recordings of Wagner's Ring Cycle, (one from emusic.com [emusic.com] at $10 a month and one for $160.00 from Amazon.com [amazon.com] -- emusic's not a bad bargain, although disc one of Seigfried's still missing).

    And I have a German sing-along version of The Internationale played on guitar, apparently recorded in the heyday of the DDR [fortunecity.com] (and I don't mean Dance Dance Revolution).

    I mention these titles not to display my eclecticism (well, ok, not only to display it) but because these are titles that I can't ever imagine finding in a commercial Karaoke product (outside some "worker's paradise") but are at the same time ones I'd really enjoy singing along to.

    And this is a general plea -- to manufacturers as well as to the Slashdot choir -- for open standards and interoperability: a karaoke machine tied to a proprietary standard which forces me to pay for karaoke versions of songs I already have, or for which the songs I want aren't available, is less than useless to me. I won't buy it, and the manufacturer won't get my money. A loss-loss.

    A karaoke machine that plays my music, and makes my tone-deaf bleatings sound a bit more musical, however, would be worth my money. And I note that the open source software [rockbox.haxx.se] I use in my portable my mp3 player does provide a "poor man's" karaoke function by subtracting the right side of stereo output from the left and vice versa. It's not perfect, and that's why I'd pay for a more adaptable algorithim and the hardware to implement it.

    But "Mr. Mister" and 34 other "Backstreet Boys In Sync with Britney and Other American Idles (sic)" I'm not interrested in. A proprietary and costly path to getting more tunes, I'm not paying for. A well designed open format karaoke machine, I'd vote for with my dollars.

    • Re:Can you sing along with me on this tune? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Masem ( 1171 ) on Monday September 15, 2003 @11:28AM (#6964289)
      Harmonix has previously done Amplitude and Frequency, both music oriented games, and the same question "Can I import my own songs into it?" has been asked, and the answer is no. It's not issues with copyright, legality or the like. But instead, it's a lot of extra audio and programming work to get the songs into Amp/Freq/KR because they have to break down the songs into the individual components, fine tune it, and other difficult tasks that can bring up the size of the file to a huge size, larger than what can fit on a standard mem card. KR is going to be to Karaoke as Amp/Freq was to a jukebox -- neither was MEANT to be a replacement for that, but only a way to provide some play value to it.

  • Karoake Revolution Song List (Score:4, Informative)

    by cdneng2 ( 695646 ) on Monday September 15, 2003 @08:33AM (#6962809)

    Karoake Revolution's song list is available here [ps2gameworld.com], which I've shown below:

    Addicted
    I'm Coming Out
    All You Wanted
    It's End of the World As We Know It
    Are You Happy Now?
    Kiss Me
    Believe
    Ladies' Night
    Billie Jean
    Like a Virgin
    Bizarre Love Triangle
    One Week
    Broken Wings
    Red Red Wine
    Celebration
    Save Tonite
    Chain of Fools
    Science Genius Girl
    Complicated
    She Talks To Angels
    Crawling in the Dark
    Smooth Criminal
    Don't Know Why
    Son of a Preacher Man
    Every Morning
    The Power of Love
    Everything You Want
    Waiting For Tonight
    Girls Just Want To Have Fun
    When a Man Loves a Woman
    Hey Jealousy
    Wind Beneath my Wings
    Hit Me With Your Best Shot
    You Really Got Me
    How You Remind Me
    You're the One That I Want

    I think the success of this game will mostly be determined by the selection of songs available. Everyone's taste is different, so I'd question the appeal of the songs to teenagers. It almost seems like the song selection is specifically targetted to GenXers (us old farts that are 25-35) that like to reminisce.

    It'd be nice to be able to pop in a CD of your favorite song, and Karoake to any of your favorites. Most ghetto blasters and bookshelf systems had that function built in for free during the Karoake fad, so I couldn't see how difficult it may have been for them to do have done this to the PS2 game version.

    Regardless, the last time I karoaked, I was trashed... and now that you can do this in the privacy of your own home, it seems like a pretty good bet for a party game. I just have to remember to have alcohol around so that I can blame something for my terrible singing.

    • Science Genius Girl

      This was also in the Harmonix game Frequency. Anyone else catch on to this?

    • Wow, two songs I could sing along to. That's better than I expected.

      When is Mark Mothersbaugh going to release DEVO Karaoke discs?

    • Everyone's taste is different, so I'd question the appeal of the songs to teenagers. It almost seems like the song selection is specifically targetted to GenXers (us old farts that are 25-35) that like to reminisce.

      Good point. Especially strange choice given that if you assume their target audience is the same as the DDR crowd, then they should have been aiming for teens and early 20-somethings. Although I do notice quite a few songs from the last few years. They probably just wanted to cover all the

  • Honestly i'd rather have that fat guy/girl exercising via DDR than trying to belt out songs from the 80's

    Though I can definately see "Like a virgin" being popular with this crowd.

  • Expansion Discs (Score:2, Insightful)

    by xanderwilson ( 662093 )
    From the article:

    Thankfully, expansion discs should be available in the future so I can get my Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera groove goin'.

    Yay! Another proprietary format! Because singing along with my stereo is SOOOO stupid without a PlayStation to guide me! I actually like the concept of this game, but 35 songs will get old REAL fast, especially if it isn't a custom list for the gamer.

    Alex.
    • What do you mean by "proprietary format"? AFAIK, not exactly being a karaoke fan, you can buy karaoke cds for something like 5 euros. So, if you want "open format karaoke" get audio cds or karaoke dvds. If, however, you think the concept is good, I don't really see how the format could be "open" while it being a commercial product...

      Also,

      Because singing along with my stereo is SOOOO stupid
      Actually, it is.
      • What I mean is: even if you have the CD (or even Kareoke CD) of the songs you want to use with the game, you'll have to (a) buy them again in the "expansion disc" format and (b) hope they come out with your songs in the expansion disc format in the first place. I doubt we're going to see Moxy Fruvous or Eddie from Ohio on the list anytime soon.

        Actually, it is.

        At least wait until you've heard me sing before you judge.

        Alex.
        • Well, I'm sorry if my comment was overly sarcastic but I think it is entirely unrealistic to expect a company like Sony to, essentially, publish an open-source library to what is, without a doubt, a very complicated process. I don't think, really, they just drag and drop a couple of mp3s on the cd and burn it...

          The comment on karaoke was intended to be funny, by the way, sorry if it didn't come through as such.

          • I took it as funny. My response was meant to be funny as well. So do we both suck at reading comments or do we both suck at writing them? I'll put a [grin] here, lest there be any doubt.

            Alex.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 15, 2003 @10:30AM (#6963687)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The article says that people with deep voices have to sing falsetto to get points...which I'm gonna have a problem with.

    I'll admit it...I've enjoyed a few nights of Karaoke. My three Karaoke songs were "People are Strange," "Chantilly Lace," and "Secret Agent Man."

    Would it kill the Japanese to include something in the lower registers, eh? Eh?
  • Isn't it bad enough that people sing false under the shower, let alone having people all around the world *and their kids* singing out of tune?

    /lAf.
  • I'm not sure if it was this game or another karaoke game, but I happened to see G4TV's awards show and before one of the commercial breaks they showed one of the guys from Barenaked Ladies sing along to his own song and it said he was awfull! Not sure what that says about the game, but it was the funniest moment of the entire show.
  • I could see pulling this out at a party and people getting about a half an hour of entertainment out of it. I sure hope it's priced accordingly though, maybe around $20-$25. Although I can't seem to get the image of some poor sad soul singing his heart out to his PS2 all by himself (scary).
  • What if you only speak linux?

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