SingStar Gets Physical

The SingStar team must be used to sore throats at the end of E3 and this year they can expect weary limbs and achy wrists as well after three days demonstrating SingStar Dance and SingStar Guitar.

They are the two new disc based SingStar titles coming out towards the end of the year. SingStar Dance allows two people to dance along using the PlayStation Move motion controller in addition to two singers. With SingStar Guitar, you can use any guitar controller you have for other games and play along while your friends sing.

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Dave Ranyard, SingStar’s game director, stood still for a minute to talk about the latest additions to the hit series.
“The key thing for us is to give people new features while retaining that classic SingStar look and feel,” he said. “For me, SingStar is all about family parties and these new features encourage more people to get involved.”
To give your movements purpose when playing SingStar Dance, there is a dancing avatar on the right hand side of the screen athat you have to mimic to get a good score. Rather than seeing the music video in the background, you see yourself and your friends, as captured by PlayStation Eye.
“I find it great fun seeing yourself on camera singing and dancing and we already know that our fans love sharing their videos via My SingStar Online,” said Ranyard. “With SingStar Dance we’re able to augment the PlayStation Move motion controller so that you see sparkles and ribbons flowing from it. We already have the Video Editor and things like this will allow our community to be even more creative.”
Good music games need good music and Ranyard promises a rich selection of songs tailored to each game; I asked him what the criteria was when selecting tracks.
“SingStar Guitar songs are quite simply those that are most fun to play on guitar,” he replied, “and on some tracks we’ve taken the bass line. With SingStar Dance songs it’s very much about the tempo.”
He added that while SingStar Guitar and Dance support won’t be added to the entire SingStore catalogue, which now includes more than 2000 songs, there will downloadable tracks for both games after launch.
“Slower tracks aren’t so good to dance to, generally speaking, but maybe we’ll find an exception to that rule. In terms of genres we have a broad range, from salsa to country to pop.”
SingStar Guitar needs less explanation as we are all used to playing guitar based music games and it will support most of the guitar controllers that we all have lying around the house. It’s a fantastic way for those people who feel shy about singing to get involved.
Late night SingStar parties will be getting more physical very soon; look out for more details on SingStar Dance and SingStar Guitar here on the PlayStation Blog.