Singing and dancing games have become all the rage in recent years across all games consoles. The trend originally started withĀ SingstarĀ for the Playstation 2 and now the market is flooded with choice including titles such as We Sing,Ā Dance CentralĀ andĀ Just Dance. The latest to be added to that genre isĀ Kylie Sing & DanceĀ which is the first licensed Kylie Minogue game on the market and has been released to tie-in with the singerās K25 celebrations (itās her 25thĀ year in the music industry this year).
Kylie Sing & DanceĀ pretty much does exactly what its title suggests. Containing 26 of Kylieās biggest hits from her career, the game enables you to sing and dance your way through Kylieās career. Each song is backed by the official music video, if you choose to sing, or by a dance instructor and some rather colourful visuals, if you choose to dance. The tracklist for the game is pretty impressive and includes early songs such asĀ I Should Be So LuckyĀ andĀ The LocomotionĀ through to more recent hits such asĀ All The LoversĀ andĀ Timebomb. Of course the monster smashĀ Canāt Get You Out Of My HeadĀ is here too along with other classics includingĀ Spinning Around,Ā Especially For YouĀ andĀ Slow.
There are several ways to play the game; Career, Quickplay and Party. Weāll start by talking through the Career mode which is the one that offers the biggest challenge. The mode allows you to work your way through Kylieās hits in chronological order. Once you select your song you have to decide whether you want to sing or dance. If you choose to sing then you can sing along with Kylieās vocal or to an official instrumental of the track. Like other singing games on the market pitch bars appear on the screen and you have to match the notes and note lengths in order to score points. If you choose to dance you need to follow the moves of the instructor on the screen whilst a bar on the right hand of the screen warns of the next move.
Scoring well enables you to unlock the next song in this mode but be warned itās not easy. The singing aspect of the game is the harder of the two. Now weāre not tone deaf by any means but we struggled to unlock any additional songs through this mode. Instead we had to turn to dance which provides quite the workout. It really throws you in the deep-end and doesnāt offer the tutorial aspect of theĀ Dance CentralĀ series which may have benefitted it. Instead you have to frantically copy the moves of your instructor and those who arenāt natural dancers will find it pretty tough.
The singing aspect of the game is the part weāre most suspect about. At times we purposely went off key or just sung louder and we scored much better than if we tried to match the pitch and tone of Kylie. Singing games arenāt always known to be the most accurate andĀ Kylie Sing & DanceĀ seems to be no exception. Expect to be pretty hoarse by the time youāve sung through a song several times trying to score more than mediocre points.
Like the singing aspect the dancing part isnāt all that accurate either. Using only the Wii remote to register your moves we found ourselves getting perfect scores when we were literally flailing our arms about and not even remotely matching what we saw onscreen. Still we had plenty of fun and itās pretty addictive trying to get the dance moves right.
For those that donāt want to play the Career mode you can dip into the game with Quickplay to perform any of the tracks. This allows you to sing or dance on your own or with other people making it the perfect party game for Kylie fans. Itās also good for a bit of practice before you unleash yourself on the Career mode. It takes quite some practice to hit some of those high notes, especially from Kylieās early career.
Kylie Sing & DanceĀ may not be the most accurate, or easy, game but itās certainly a hell of a lot of fun. All the Kylie songs youād want to sing and dance to are included here and if nothing else youāll have a ball trying to be Kylie.Ā Kylie Sing & DanceĀ is addictive despite its difficulty and should prove to be a lot of fun this Christmas.