SingStar Legends Hot

Legends are stories about mythological figures or events centering on individuals who do extraordinary things. In music, legends are the artists who help shape or change the face of music. They craft and perform the tunes that are the soundtrack to a generation.

For most of us, legends are the people that we can only pretend to be. Thankfully, the SingStar karaoke series for the PlayStation 2 has made that a little bit easier with their new release, “SingStar Legends”. Featuring 30 classic tracks, Legends takes a very diverse walk through modern music history. With tracks ranging from the screaming dark power chords of Kurt Cobain’s band Nirvana performing their now infamous “Smells like Teen Spirit” to the happier and universally recognizable Motown sounds of Marvin Gaye singing his classic “What’s Goin’ On?”, Legends has a little something for everyone.

If you’re a regular reader of Digital Chumps, you’ll read that just a couple days ago I wrote in a review for SingStar Vol. 2 that one thing I disliked was how diverse the disc was in song selection. My reasoning was that through the online store available on the PlayStation 3 console you can download tracks for about $2 each, and the likelihood that I would choose even half of the 30 songs on the disc wasn’t strong enough to justify the MSRP for the disc. Today I sing a different tune…

Truthfully, SingStar Legends has an amazing lineup here, and after reviewing 3 different SingStar games in the course of the week, I can easily say that aside from “SingStar: Rocks” (2006) this has been my favorite lineup of songs available in a SingStar collection to date. The songs are timeless, and many music fans may agree that despite how you define your taste, these songs are classics and loved by a very large pool of listeners (or in this case singers!)

The tracks in this collection include:

·         Barry White - You're the First, The Last, My Everything

·         Biz Markie - Just A Friend

·         Black Sabbath – Paranoid

·         Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart

·         David Bowie - Life On Mars?

·         Dusty Springfield - Son Of A Preacher Man

·         Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

·         Elton John - I'm Still Standing

·         Elvis Presley - Blue Suede Shoes

·         Grateful Dead - Touch Of Grey

·         The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back

·         James Brown - I Got You (I Feel Good)

·         John Lennon – Imagine

·         Johnny Cash - Ring Of Fire

·         Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

·         Madonna - Papa Don't Preach

·         Marvin Gaye - What's Goin On?

·         Michael McDonald - I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)

·         The Monkees - Daydream Believer

·         Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

·         Patsy Cline – Crazy

·         The Police – Roxanne

·         Ray Charles - Hit The Road Jack

·         The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody

·         The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil

·         Sam Cooke - Wonderful World

·         The Smiths - This Charming Man

·         Tina Turner - What’s Love Got to do with it?

·         Tom Jones - What's New Pussycat

·         Whitney Houston - I'm Your Baby Tonight

Usually when I play this title, I’ll plug in with two players and sing every other song with a friend. I do enjoy the duet and the head to head modes… but I found myself wanting to sing along with every song on this disc! I created a single player competition with my room mate where we’d take turns singing the same song to see who would get a better score. I actually sang so much that I hurt my throat. I wish I could say that this was my first video game related injury…

All in all I have to give the folks at Sony a nod and a smile for this title. While the SingStar series is formulaic and cross promotional… it’s also incredibly fun. The choices they’ve included in this title should be recognizable to most (I’d say “all”, but I learned in college that nobody likes a blanketing statement, hehe.)

Corny grammar jokes aside, this title is fantastic. If you enjoy the SingStar series or if you just enjoy Karaoke, I’ll highly recommend checking this out! It’s got replay value unlike most games because you rarely tire of singing along to your favorite classic songs. SingStar Legends is fun at parties, fun for a diverse crowd of players, and still a great take on what a video game is. I’d highly recommend picking up a copy, it’ll be one of the most fun games in your collection!