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26 of 27 found the following review helpful:
almost a winner! good and bad pointsDec 03, 2009
By Patrick H. Nguyen I'm a big Karaoke Revolution, Rock Band, and Guitar Hero fan. Lips is a pretty good first try. The songs are pretty good but the selection could be a little bigger. Also, some of the songs are really nice to listen to, but they're hard to sing in that a lot of the songs have choppy, quick phrasing. Almost feels like you're rapping to some of the songs instead of doing melody.
I wish they copied the above games more in terms of singing. I'll use karaoke Revolution as an example. As you sing, it's very easy to see the words as well as what pitch you're singing at because they have an easy to see arrow and if you notice that you need to sing higher or lower you can adjust. This is all while still being easy to see the words to the songs.
But on Lips, the words are totally separate from the pitch bar. So if you follow the words, it's hard to see the pitch bar unless you have fabulous peripheral vision. And if you follow the pitch bar, you better know the words beforehand. Plus, you see the glowing light of what pitch you're at but it's not as easy to follow as the arrow you see in Karaoke Revolution or Rock Band or Guitar Hero.
They make up for this fault by taking away all of the game aspect. there's no chance to fail. There's no difficulty level to choose. There's no computer audience to boo. So it feels like a karaoke machine rather than a game. But you don't get that sense of accomplishment the other games give where you feel like you match that pitch bar and feel like a singer.
They should also give you options of how the text and pitch bar scroll like in the other games. The best scrolling is Karaoke Revolution and Rock Band. Pretty each to read the text and pitch bar.
Guitar Hero/Band Hero is bad at scrolling text. But it offers a static mode that is really good too. Lips is like a combination of the two but it's not as good as either mode individually.
I'll be honest, I bought it for the wireless mics, not the game. The mics are really cool. They have glowing lights that change color. And the colors sync up to the music. the setup for the mics is much harder than it should be. trust me, you won't get it the first time or rather, you won't be sure you got it or not until you start the game. there's very little visual indication that it's been properly set up. And it's hard to turn off the controllers too. Because the same action (hold down the button on the bottom of the mic) does 3 different things. You need to do it twice to setup the mic. but you also do it to turn off the mic. so sometimes, you want to turn it off and then you accidentally you put it in pairing mode. when I thought the mic was off, it was on.
in terms of the sound, I liked my mics for Karaoke Revolution more even though they were wired. the sound was just more natural. the sound coming out of these wireless mics seemed a little artificial. almost a tinny quality. and they were not as good at filtering noise.
also, you can use the mics as instruments by shaking them to simulate various instruments like tamborine, etc. but again, there was a lag to when you shook the mic to when it played the sound so if you shake according to the music, it'll sound really off sync with the music.
i love the feature of how you can join a song just by shaking the mic. and the tilt features of the mic are gimmicky but is hilarious in a group situation when both singers raise up the mic in tandem.
Also, there seemed to be a delay between when you sing into the mic and when it comes out the game. but after playing around with the game, I got a downloaded update to the game from MS and it included a cool sync tool. and it's by far the easy calibration tool I've ever used for a music game. You just put up the microphone to the TV speaker while it's running and after a few seconds, it calculates the delay.
41 of 48 found the following review helpful:
Xbox 360's Musical BreakthroughNov 18, 2008
By Michael Kerner
"Michael Kerner"
There are just so many great music games out there. While you have the guitar standards that are based on rhythm like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and those that make you step to the beat of the music like Dance Dance Revolution, there is just the feeling of games that you have to sing your way to the top. With lackluster games like American Idol and Disney's Sing It!, just appeal to tweens and teeny-boppers wannabes alike, there just doesn't feel like there is a universal appeal to sing-a-long games alike. For those who've played Singstar so much from the PS2 and Playstation 3, the Xbox 360 has taken that notion to a whole new level that makes it more than just meets the eye.
Lips for the Xbox 360 takes in the appeal of what the Singstar! series had for the PS2, and brings in the appeal as a first for Xbox 360 players. While the game might seem like a gimmick, there actually is surprisingly more. You have the usuals like Singstar, from singing along to over 40 tracks that appeal from recent favorites like Duffy's Mercy and the extremely overexposed artist of 2008 Rihanna with Umbrella, to classics like The Jackson 5's ABC, and Everything She Does Is Magic by The Police. You also have the ability to download videos from the Xbox Live marketplace to add on to the fun. While the graphics and sound might feel like it is similar to Singstar!, as well as the concept of the downloadable content, what makes this unique to the gameplay is Lips secret weapon.
What makes the gameplay more unique is that you can plug in your MP3 player or Ipod, and connect it to the 360, and sing along to your favorite songs off their personal MP3 Players in the game as well. This feature makes the game a whole lot more exciting and addictive to the gameplay for parties everywhere. Sadly, there is one big disadvantage to the MP3 playback. The only music downloads that are compatable, are ones that are MP3 DRM-Free capable. Which is the only problem, is that if you download music off of sites that use other music files in Windows Media Audio or WMA, they will not be playable on the game. That is sadly, the only major flaw in the game. Also, I was hoping that with the price of the Singstar! games for PS2 and Playstation 3, I really thought it would also be a bit less expensive.
All in all though, Lips for the Xbox 360 brings in the singing along concept well for those who want to have a great time listening to their favorite songs. If you've gotten pretty tired of Singstar!, or if you don't own a Playstation 2, or PS3, than this would be a fantastic buy for music lovers and 360 gamers all around the world. I really hope they make this concept for more music games like this soon. At around $65, you really get a great game, that doesn't feel like it is a gimmick.
Graphics: B
Sound: B
Control: B
Extras: B+
Fun & Enjoyment: B- for solo play; A- for multiplayer
Overall: B
18 of 21 found the following review helpful:
Work In Progress...Nov 25, 2008
By Bea Shalla
"Abenteurerin"
If you like to sing, Rock Band 2 is better. When you sing on Rock Band2, it shows you how close you are to hitting the right pitch. With Lips, it only lights up if you hit the right pitch, so it's not as much help in learning to sing the song perfectly on pitch.
You can do 'battles' with another singer, but you can't choose your own avatar when you do. So, you both look like monsters, one skinny with green hair and the other fat with blue hair. It's also confusing to figure out who's who.
I feel this has so much promise, but it's not there yet. And the songs... not that many... we're still figuring the proper format to upload our own music.
I like that it has the original music videos for the songs it offers though.
If you don't have Rock Band 2 you may like to check that one out Rock Band 2
11 of 14 found the following review helpful:
Don't believe the negative hype, this is the best karaoke game released so farDec 31, 2008
By Michael Jackson
"-Mike"
*NOTE: For those of you having connection issues:
YOU MUST UNPLUG ALL USB MICROPHONES BEFORE STARTING LIPS!
One of the better gifts I gave this Christmas was Lips, though I have to admit I was hesitant to buy it after reading a couple mediocre reviews from gamespot and kotaku. Most of the negativity seems to revolve around the music import tool, allowing you to import your own MP3's, WMA's and M4A's from a connected thumb drive, music player (haven't tried the iPod yet, sorry), and even through a wireless connected media center! It sounds like a good idea, but one reviewer pointed out "importing thousands of my own songs was...largely useless. You don't get lyrics..." Not so. Forget proper karaoke for a moment - if you love just singing along with your favorite tunes but lack a legitimate excuse to grab a mic and rock out, Lips offers exactly that. Matching the music's waveform earns you the same points and fills the mic-gesture-gauge just as though the song were part of the game. It's a blast and we love it! Even if you decide not to import your own music, there's plenty to purchase online with full lyrics and music videos. Unfortunately, with only 40 tracks on disc, you'll find that if you DON'T add to the library at all, you'll quickly tire of repeating yourself.
Besides the library, the game itself offers a lot over its sing-along competition. The interface alone is super-slick, displaying album art for each song during music selection, and overall the whole experience is tailored for group play. Players can sing simultaneously in versus mode, or take turns with phrases and harmonies in duet mode. There's even a few party game modes (vocal fighters, Kiss, and Time Bomb) which can be activated by selecting them as the songs background video. Spectators can even use the standard controllers to make a verity of percussive sounds (ie "noise makers"), and the motion-sensitive mics can be used to activate a star/point bonus when the gesture gauge fills (much like star power in RockBand / Guitar Hero). And to answer your question, yes, Harmonix has promised a patch which will make the wireless mics compatible with RockBand in the near future. Woo!
My only complaint is an incompatibility that isn't documented in the instructions:
YOU MUST UNPLUG ALL USB MICROPHONES BEFORE STARTING LIPS.
I'll explain. First, don't listen to what other people have said -- the process of syncing both mics is just as easy as syncing a normal wireless controller. We ran into no problems here what so ever. The problem was that, though everything was working fine in single player mode, as soon as I tried to join in with the 2nd microphone, BOTH mics stopped working. Then, when starting over, the first mic, which was working fine before, started having timing and static issues. Additionally, the lights on the 2nd mic never light up, making me think it was either broken or not synced properly. No matter which order I connected everything, connecting a 2nd mic broke the connection with the first. Almost ready to take it all back, I ran across this thread on Gamespot, revealing the following observation:
"It turns out that all my issues stem from the fact I have a USB microphone connected to my Xbox 360. Somehow microphone registration gets all screwy because of that. In my case, I have my Rock Band microphone plugged into the Xbox 360 at all times. The fix is to unplug the USB microphone when you're playing Lips. Apparently this will fix both the 2nd microphone lighting issues as well as the static noise, video and audio out of sync issues, as well as the freezing issues."
My problem EXACTLY. I hope someone out there finds this useful. Happy new year!
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Best Karaoke Game So FarAug 17, 2010
By Nicholas J. Kittleson
"www.romancingalaska.com"
I enjoyed playing Karaoke Revolution on the original Xbox. But I decided not to continue with that game on the 360 because the ratings indicated partial nudity and sexual themes. Lips seemed to have more appropriate content based on the ratings. And for the most part, it is a very clean game. Some of the music videos are racy. But there are options to select other backgrounds than the video. The words are much easier to read than previous karaoke games. What really takes the game to the next level is the motion sensors in the mic. The game indicates to perform certain motions at certain times to get bonus "stars". That is really cool. I also very much appreciate that I can go to the Lips store in the game and purchase additional songs. There are over 400 to choose from and Lips releases 3 or 4 new songs every Friday. The songs are only $2 each, which I feel is a great price. There are 3 additional song set discs that add 40 songs each to the game: Number One Hits, Party Classics and I Love the 80s. (I Love the 80s was only released in the UK, but it still works in US consoles.) However, the down side is that the songs on the discs are not transferable to the hard drive so I cannot sing the songs on a disc unless the disc is in the console. Only the songs downloaded from the store remain when discs are switched. Buying this version with the two mics is a great deal. Bottom line, if you like to sing along with your favorite songs, this is a great choice.
***Update: The Lips server seems to be experiencing intermittent outages again. Morning of October 1 the server was down, but just tested again in the afternoon and it was working.
based on 77 reviews
( 77 customer reviews )
