iNiS's karaoke hit returns with a new batch of tracks from years gone by, but is this a flop or the new Number One?

 

Just to buck the trend a little I really enjoyed the original Lips title, with it's energetic motion mics and additional gameplay modes this was always the first game on to get the party started at home. Lips Number One Hits continues that trend and this time with the difficult second game the developers have focused on chartbreakers from the past 30+ years. Any singing game is really only worth what songs are in the pack and Hits has a great mix of 40 pop tracks (plus an extra song pack via DLC of 5 songs) to please all fans ranging from LL Cool J, Roxette, Sugababes, The Beach Boys and Kanye West.

 

 

Pretty much everything from the first game is there but it all looks very different. The main menu allows you to easily flip from your My Lips profile to add songs from an external source and the main Sing mode. Sing is where all the action takes place and with the Hits disc inserted the layout is presented as a huge grid showing all of your songs in coloured groups, comprising of downloaded, Lips original, Number One Hits tracks and finally songs on the Lips Store. Don't like the layout? just change it to artist or track order with a quick button press. The inclusion of the store on the main Sing screen is a great idea, allowing you to see what else is on offer and also have a quick listen if you are unsure what it is, sadly the streaming is still slow which is a problem that dogged the last game.

 

Once a song is selected you are taken Backstage to select which modes you would like to play, this is the same as before with Single/Vs and Duet plus the chance to play the original video, the iNiS Virtual Music Video or the head to head battle games like Vocal Fighters, Time Bomb or Kiss. The battle games are again identical to the last Lips title and sadly there are no new modes so if you have played them before you know you won't be playing them again.

 

The actual singing screen has probably changed the most and on initial play it was very confusing. The layout is similar, with the 6 medals in the top right, lyrics bar at the top and bottom and the lyrics in the middle. As you sing you build a Star Stream and unlock medals like pitch and performance, in the last game the medals were unlocked by generally shaking the mics like mad and singing well, this time around there are specific Noise Maker and Gesture bonuses mid song to pull off with the mic, so if you see your avatar doing an air guitar, you do the same to earn more points, due to this the Gestures are no longer needed to activate the Star Steam and a simple shake of the mic now activates this special power. This also causes a problem as now many of the songs seem impossible to get certain medals on as not all of them have Noise Maker icons and Gestures to pull off.      

 

The score system has been both improved and messed-up in one foul swoop, there is an all new real-time ranking, as you sing you see your rank increase (which is an awesome idea) it brings out the competitive edge in you, the scores also earn you bronze, silver, gold or diamond trophies. These trophies are based on world rankings which causes yet another problem. In some of the songs people have already resorted to the old speaker cheat, scoring ludicrously high scores, if more people do this it will render the trophies useless as even a perfect song will not get you a bronze medal (this is already happening on the older songs) as a ranking of 400 will get you a bronze, early adopters will get on the board, those purchasing this later may find it very difficult.

 

Whilst the single player and Vs modes are easy to follow the lyrics on screen, the Duet is a mess, it is very confusing as to who should be singing what line. Where you would think a Duet would be split to a certain singer each is in fact a mess, for example with the Black Eyes Peas track Don't Phunk With My Heart, both players will switch from Fergie to the rest of the band and back again every few lines and with no real sense to what is happening it turns into carnage and a lot of messed up lines. A shame as other games have shown how to do this properly.   

 

There are some songs on the list that have appeared on numerous other karaoke games and when first glanced at the likes of Karma Chameleon and Heart of Glass I thought they would not be played, however the inclusion of the motion mics really bring some fresh life into the songs so rather than a stagnant screen with lyrics you are being motivated to move around and dance.   

 

 

It feels like that with every improvement made, a new and even worse problem arises. The worst two areas are the issues with "compatibility" with the old disc and Store tracks. Some of the DLC had not migrated over including my party favorite Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot, to play these you have to turn off Hits and reload Lips original (which has had no update to match the new layout?). This sound bad?, well even though the new Hits Sing menu shows the tracks from your old Lips game you still have to swap the discs and wait for a short load. Now that sounds normal and in keeping with other games but what is shocking is that once the song is finished you have to swap the discs back??  That's right, even though you can play songs from the old Lips you have to swap the disc twice for each song making it an utterly pointless addition.

 

iNiS have made a very mixed message with this game, on one side it is a new game with a £29 price tag and 45 new tracks but on the other it's more of an update as you only have 250 gamerpoints (which pretty much unlock straight away if you have played the original) and some avatar clothing and a pointless disc swap option. If your new to Lips then really the original is the best bet as it is selling cheap and offers a more rounded experience. The way Lips is going is interesting but iNiS really need to update the game quickly to keep fans from going elsewhere.  I stated in the beginning of this review I really enjoy the original Lips game and I will still be playing this game on Friday nights as there are still positives like the real-time score and very good tracks but this sequel is still quite a disappointment.