Karaoke Revolution Party gives you the opportunity to show off not only your singing ability but your dancing skills as well. With solid gameplay, more than 50 songs, and a ton of modes, Karaoke Revolution Party is a pretty solid value. If you are playing by yourself it isn’t quite a must buy, but if you have people around to play it with it is worth every penny.
Gameplay
Karaoke Revolution Party features more than 50 songs including pop hits, rock and roll ballads, classic songs and a lot more. The soundtrack has a lot of variety and there are plenty of songs to make everyone happy no matter what type of music you prefer. All of the songs are surprisingly fun to sing along with, so it is best to just swallow your pride and give them all a try at least once.
The gameplay is pretty simple. Using either a microphone that comes bundled with the game or a regular Xbox Live headset, you just sing along with the songs and try to match the song’s pitch. There is a little scale on the screen and as the words scroll across on the bottom from right to left they are accompanied by marks on the scale that tell you what pitch each part is and how long you have to hold it. A little arrow indicator tells you what pitch you are actually producing which makes it easier to go higher or lower as necessary to hit the right marks.
Features
In addition to being able to just jump right in and start singing, Karaoke Revolution Party is crammed full of different play modes for when you have some other people around to sing with. You can do duets, melodies, compete individually or in teams, or play elimination games. There isn’t too much loading in the game and you can quickly jump in and out of gameplay and check scores which keeps the party flowing. New to the series is that you can now hook up a dance mat and dance and sing at the same time like it is a boot camp for future pop stars. It sounds good on paper, but having to sing and dance at the same time is actually pretty difficult. Particularly when you have to keep yourself from tripping over your dance pad, controller, and microphone cords. What actually works better is playing with two people where one sings and the other dances. This promotes a different sort of teamwork than most games and can be pretty interesting. Overall, the gameplay in Karaoke Revolution Party is pretty darn fun and there is a ton of stuff to do. It is undeniably more fun in a party setting than by yourself, though, so consider that before you make a purchase.
Graphics and Sound
Graphically, Karaoke Revolution Party isn’t much to look at, but it doesn’t really have to be. You can kind of get lost amid all of the necessary gameplay markers (between the singing stuff on the bottom and DDR arrows on the rest of the screen it gets kind of hectic) but you get used to it. The backgrounds consist of different settings (garages all the way up to large arenas) and feature a band playing on stage. You are the lead singer of the band, of course, and can customize your avatar in a number of nifty ways to make the experience more personal.
The sound plays a big role in the game and, thankfully, it is all very good. As I have mentioned, the soundtrack is pretty good and has a lot of variety. The songs aren’t the originals and are done by sound alikes instead of the real artists, but since you are the one that is doing all of the singing it doesn’t really matter. In addition to the 50+ songs that come on the disc you can also download a bunch more off of Xbox Live (for a fee).
Bottom Line
Karaoke Revolution Party is a good title for this game because among the right crowd this is definitely the ultimate party game. Singing and dancing with and against your friends is an absolute blast and this game gives you a ton of options and modes in which you can get your sing and your dance on. Playing by yourself is fun, but this is a party game at heart so if you don’t have people to play with on a regular basis it might be more of a rental type game. For people that plan on playing with friends or the crazy die hards (like myself) that just love music/rhythm games and lament the fact that we only have a handful available on the Xbox, Karaoke Revolution Party is a solid purchase. You can get it bundled with a microphone for $55 or by itself (you already have an Xbox Live headset, right?) for $40.
