This is most certainly a game I would never go for under normal circumstances. I’ve never been one for dancing around the living room in front of the PS4 camera (Just Dance) or singing into a USB microphone to a computer game.. Ever.
I guess the main reasons for this are simple enough, I’m just not into the awful music that fills our charts these days, not to mention the noise of it blasting out of a spotty kids overly loud headphones as they pass me on the street whilst they stare at their phone oblivious to the world around them and living the dream through social media. I’m a Rock and Metal fan; pure and simple! I physically can’t even class 90% of anything that is in the charts as being remotely close to talented.
So why am I reviewing a game that I shouldn’t like as it mainly consists of teenage pop crap? Well, that bit is easy..
I sing in a band! Bare with me..
Back in June I was the victim of an attack and left in intensive care for a few days after being punched in the throat. I have been left with a partially paralysed vocal chord. I’m going through weekly speech therapy sessions to try and strengthen it back up and get it fully working again, so obviously that includes countless amounts of warm ups and vocal exercises. I was offered a review copy of Lets Sing 2019 by our good friends over at Koch Media, so I accepted with the idea that at least I could concentrate on a visual display of my voice, but I will get on to that further into this article.
The basic idea of Lets Sing 2019 is a Karaoke machine for your console, the stable recipe for any drunk night out with your friends or if you’re a little too young for that naughty and disgusting drinky poos (be safe kids, don’t do it) then you’ll be there pretending to reciprocate your idols and annoy the one annoying neighbour that everyone has by turning up the volume and blasting out the tunes.
If you’ve never played these types of games before, the general idea is to pick one of the 30 songs available and nail all those notes to score the best possible total you can and beat your friends, or just sing along on your own. I did both; I wanted to be able to sing some of the classic songs that I know all too well and be able to hold the notes (strengthen that vocal chord) but I also played alongside with my daughter who loved it.
I started out with Abba and Mamma Mia and even though I couldn’t sing the high notes the same as Abba did (used to be able to before the attack), singing an octave lower was fine, the game picked up on that and I managed to get my little tone marker in the right note spaces. The visual representation helped a lot to be able to see for myself if there were any fluctuations in holding notes as normally I cant really hear myself singing unless there is a decent monitor speaker on stage in front of me, so I sing from memory which isn’t as easy as it used to be.
So, that all important tracklist that comes with the game? Well it does cater for most tastes in the multitude of genres that we seem to be flooded with these days. The base game comes with a healthy 30 tracks to choose from
Bruno Mars ft. Cardi B – Finesse (remix)
Zedd ft. Maren Morris & Grey – The Middle
Rita Ora – Anywhere
Clean Bandit ft. Zara Larsson – Symphony
Jonas Blue ft. William Singe – Mama
Portugal. The Man – Feel It Still
Starley – Call On Me (Ryan Riback Remix)
Everything But The Girl – Missing (Todd Terry Club Mix)
Bon Jovi – Livin’ On A Prayer
Auli’i Cravalho – How Far I’ll Go
Shawn Mendes – There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back
Dua Lipa – New Rules
Nicky Jam & J Balvin – X
Queen – I Want It All
Lorde – Green Light
Michael Schulte – You Let Me Walk Alone
Sheryl Crow – All I Wanna Do
DNCE – Cake By The Ocean
Tom Walker – Leave a Light On
No Doubt – Don’t Speak
ABBA – Mamma Mia
Lady Gaga – Perfect Illusion
Martin Garrix & Dua Lipa – Scared To Be Lonely
Bruno Mars – 24K Magic
Lou Bega – Mambo No. 5
Bananarama – Cruel Summer
Passenger – Let Her Go
4 Non Blondes – What’s Up?
Kygo & Selena Gomez – It Ain’t Me
Felix Jaehn ft. Jasmine Thompson – Ain’t Nobody (Loves Me Better)
You can also buy a few nice add on packs for the game. I was fortunate enough to get these sent with my game review and seemed to have more fun with these than I did with the original songs. The Platinum edition comes with these, but it will be 3.99 per DLC if you wish to buy seperately.
There’s 2 Part Classic Volumes, each of which include 5 songs like Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’, A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me’ and Madness’ ‘Our House. On top of this is the Legendary Songs pack which adds another 5 songs to the library including ‘I will Survive’ and Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’. ‘Best of 90’s’ and ‘Best of 80’s’ Song packs, each with 5 songs, add the likes of Wham!’s ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go –Go’, All Saint’s ‘Never Ever’ and a guilty pleasure of mine; Aqua’s insanely difficult ‘Barbie Girl’ to the mix. Lastly, there’s the Chart Hit Song pack. 5 recent chart toppers including the Clean Bandit’s ‘Tears’. With all of these purchased, the library is upped to an impressive 65 songs total.
So there’s definitely something in there for everyone of all ages.
The set up of the on screen display is lovely. You are treated to the original video of the song played in the background with (rather obviously) the lyrics on screen at the bottom. As the song plays, these lyrics are broken down on screen into different heights scrolling across to denote your pitch change whilst singing. There’s a marker which then runs over the notes which displays your actual pitch in comparison to how it should be so you can make minor changes to your singing to be able to nail all the right notes and not sound like a dying cat. For me personally, this works well as having said above, I cant always hear my singing voice so I know where to make changes and believe me, with a partially paralyzed vocal chord, that isn’t easy.
Let’s Sing 2019 has a number of game modes to tackle as well, its not just singing one song and being done. The ‘Classic Mode’, is where you pick a single song and rack up as high score as possible. Earning high scores in this mode unlocks alternative versions of songs too. Mix tape ‘2.0’ mode, jumbles together 5 randomly chosen songs for you to tackle. Alternatively, you can choose your own 5 song mix tape from the library and sing them back to back. Lastly, there’s Featuring mode, which gives you another score to be weary of – Compatibility. Sing in tune with another player and you’ll score big. All of these modes can be player in solo, with or without a computer helper or in multiplayer so you can make a complete fool of yourself to someone you have never met in some far flung land.
All of this is achieved via the use of a USB Mic, and I’m sure most will have some floating around somewhere from any previous releases of this type. However, if you don’t have a Mic, don’t despair. Lets Sing has an app which can be downloaded for free on your mobile which turns your phone into a microphone and you can sing this way. I tried it out and had no issues connecting to the game, and the sound quality was as good as a wired microphone.
So, time to sum up the game and give my verdict. I was pleasantly surprised. I said right at the start, its not a game that I would ever consider buying normally, but I had some real fun with this one and my mind has been changed for future releases. Its a fantastic party game for the family or even just to pass the time away by yourself, just make sure your neighbours are out as you will want to turn up the volume!
9/10 is easily achieved and I would definitely recommend it to anyone that asked. Hours of fun are ahead of you in this game which you will keep going back to, after all, New Years Eve is fast approaching and what better way to spend the night than being stuck in front of the mind numbing attempt at TV entertainment that is shown?
