Karaoke - the party activity on everybody’s lips

Ah, good old karaoke! Roughly translated into English, the word “karaoke” means “loosening of office tie, overindulging in free office punch, jumping on top of boardroom table with microphone in-hand, basking under the splendor of the glitter ball, and subsequently ruining all your long-term career prospects at current company.”

Although the concept of karaoke is still the same as it was twenty years ago, the technology has enjoyed a facelift, and the previously associated anathema has made way for a much more open and receptive market. Lips is a return to the old ways of music party games, and is Microsoft’s unabashed riposte to Sony’s SingStar. The mechanisms of the game are still as simple as before: you grab a microphone and sing along to some of your favorite tunes ala karaoke style, only now with a sexy Xbox 360 in the place of a bulky karaoke system, and with a mouth-watering assortment of pop hits including Ace of Base “The Sign,” Leona Lewis “Bleeding Love,” and Beyonce “Irreplaceable.”

Where Lips tries to venture out from the age-old karaoke turf is with added features such as the jukebox, playlists, song imports, mini-games, and motion-sensitive wireless microphones.

With the jukebox, there’s an option for random songs to be played in the background and when someone’s keen to drop in, they simply shake one of the microphones and join in on the action. Jukebox mode can be tweaked to play “faves” based on your song ratings (for instance, play all songs with three or more stars) while with playlist mode instead of songs based on ratings, selection is based on pre-defined playlists. Players can create two types of playlists; instant (they don’t get saved), or named (these are saved and can be revisited at different sittings).

Did you hear about the crook that tried to blow up a bus…?

Lips carries a collection of forty tracks (with most including original videos) and as already mentioned, includes several mini-games (hardly impacting on the regular gameplay and more of a tongue-in-cheek distraction than anything more). Songs can be performed in single mode, versus mode or co-op mode, and the mini-games include head-to-head, co-op (get your characters to kiss…with their LIPS, teehee), and time bomb (in normal mode you can’t fail a song, but with time bomb you need to keep singing well and the bomb won’t go off - sing poorly and the bomb explodes and it’s game over). Of course, if you find the forty tracks aren’t enough to prepare you for your audition with Simon Cowell, Microsoft has come to the rescue with the now ubiquitous facility to buy more lip-smacking songs online, ensuring hours and hours (and dollars and dollars) of extended singing pleasure (and ample Idols practice).

…He burnt his LIPS!!

The entire Lips experience isn’t that much different to traditional singing simulation games of the past - I mean, let’s be honest, how far can one deviate from the tried-and-tested method of karaoke in a karaoke game? The selection of songs, although limited, is varied enough to ensure that most participants will find a style or song they enjoy. With the exception of importing your own songs, Lips doesn’t do anything spectacularly out of the ordinary when it comes to the karaoke genre, but it does the traditional stuff reasonably well, so there shouldn’t be any disappointments there. The ability to import more songs goes some way to extending the lifespan of this title, since you can sing to songs on your Zune, iPod, network share or other personal music player or USB flashdrive (some DRM music may not work), but this limits participation to those that actually know the songs, since you don’t have lyrics during the Freestyle mode.

Can anyone see my fat lip?

On the flipside, the game is very confusing to get started. When we first tried to play, we couldn’t even get the microphones connected! The manual is decidedly tight-lipped about this, and I had to Google for further information on how to connect them. I include the link here for your benefit. What’s most confusing about the wireless microphones is that the mics’ lights change colour throughout the game so you can’t use the colour guides of the lights to know who’s the red player and who’s the blue player. Even though the casing of the mics are black and white (you can’t get more obviously distinctive), there’s still an overwhelming tendency to go by the lights as an indicator of who’s who in the game. Don’t let this key note slip your memory: one player has a white mic and the other has a black mic, ignore the flashing lights.

Additionally, the fluidity between songs is hampered heavily by the need for a standard controller. After every song there’s a pause that can only be overcome with a controller, and it seems like the developers only paid lip service to ensuring a fluid, seamless party experience. To not have included a motion-sensitive shake option to skip to the next song is jaw-droppingly astounding. This may not sound like a big deal, but when you’re going through a playlist, microphones in hand, the last thing you’re expecting is to down tools every four minutes and find the controller to skip to the next track.

Stiff upper lips, gentlemen…

In summary, this is certainly not a game for two manly buddies in a room on their own, and I advise against manly men playing this when there’s the option to watch rugby instead (particularly if you’re hoping to impress a member of the lady-type). That said, if you wish to impress said lady-types, then especially bite your lip and avoid singing “Let’s Groove” by Earth, Wind and Fire, for no other reason than to not show off your manly coloratura soprano.

This is a party game through and through so it is a fairly disappointing solo experience. As with all singing games, Lips relies heavily on ability (unlike, say, Guitar Hero, where no-one in their right mind has ever previously played on a plastic five button guitar emulator so it’s immediately a level playing field). People are always going to shy away from being the first to play this sort of game, but what helps to get people going is to just get started yourself. Remember: loose lips sink ships, so just turn the mic input down, crank the volume up, and let the respectable selection of songs drown out the embarrassing voices and soon enough an old or current favorite should crop up on the jukebox for someone to want to sing and that infamous ship of shame will be sinking away (this form of “Lips sinking” is acceptable).

Despite the restricted number of songs in Lips, the age-old tradition of karaoke never grows old, and you should be able to derive several parties’ worth of entertainment from this package before you consider buying more tracks. Don’t let anyone give you any lip for bringing this title to a party - it may take some time to warm everyone up, but once everyone’s in the groove, it holds its own and is well worth a venture even though it’s not particularly revolutionary. Read my lips: all-in-all, Lips is a fun party game and is a fine addition to any console muso’s party games collection.

The Good: Motion-sensitive wireless microphones; nice pop hits; belting out coloratura soprano in “Let’s Groove.”

The Bad: Connecting the microphones; figuring out who’s who; having to click between songs; limited selection of tracks; it’s socially awkward with strangers; my lips puns.

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