October 28, 2009

Disney Sing It: Pop Hits - Wii/PS3

Author: JohnnyXeo

Genre: Singing/Party Game
Release: October 2009
Game Rating: E for Everyone
Average Cost: $59.99 (with microphone), $49.99 (with out microphone)




Zoe Mode and Disney Interactive Studios have released another great Sing It title with Sing It: Pop Hits provides a great selection of 30 new songs to sing along to from artists such as Duffy, Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, Colbie Caillat and Taylor Swift just to name a few. All the songs in this title are well known to fans and even will be familiar to people who may only hear these songs on the radio.

Sing It: Pop Hits plays like your basic karaoke game where you select a song and follow along with the words that are displayed on the screen. The game is broken down into Sing It and Sing It Pro with Sing It Pro being your tutorial. Sing It Pro is the best place to start off the game where Tiffany Thornton, who you may recognize from her role as Tawni Hart on Sonny with a Chance will walk you through the basic concepts that you will need to learn. Sing It Pro has changed a bit from previous Sing It titles with the tutorial broken down into four categories: Breathing & Accuracy, Highs & Lows, Duets & Harmonies, Sliding & Riffing.

Each category has five lessons that must be completed in sequence and a minimum score must be achieved to move on to the next lesson. Through a short video at the beginning of each skill category, Tiffany explains what each lesson will teach and will perform an example that you will have to duplicate. The lessons in the tutorial are more complex than I remember from the previous Sing It titles. This was a welcome addition because the lessons felt more like a vocal class, rather than a how-to video. After completing the four lesson categories you will be able to attend Master Class which is some advanced lessons that will challenge you in all four lesson categories.

The only downfall to Sing It Pro is the repetitiveness of the melodies that were used to complete the lessons. Melodies that consisted of “La La La”, “Ohs” and “Yeah’s” became quite tiresome after a few lessons and I wished that the lessons were taught with lyrics to spice it up a bit.


After completing Sing It Pro you will be ready to play Sing It which is both single and multiplayer. In Single Player you can either sing Solo, where the lyrics will appear on the screen or really challenge yourself in You’re On Your Own where you are literally on your own with no lyrics appearing on the screen. Each mode has difficulties of Easy, Normal and Hard depending on how vocally talented you are.

Multiplayer mode has a few more game modes to choose from including: Showdown, Dual Mic Duet, Single Mic Duet, Run the Risk and lastly multiplayer You’re On Your Own!. Showdown is a head to head gameplay option where you compete on the same song, and the winner is the singer who attains the best score. Dual Mic Duet is where you duet with one player singing Part 1, and the other singing Part 2. Now, if you don’t have two microphones you can Single Mic Duet where you pass the microphone back and forth sharing the singing responsibilities. Run the Risk is where you choose a score goal and compete against your opponent in order to defend or increase you score. Finally there is multiplayer You’re On Your Own which works the same as the single player mode.

Looking for more fun gameplay, you should check out the challenges found in the Achievement section of the main menu. As one would expect this section will list all the achievements you unlocked and could unlock by completing pre-determined skills/feats such as reaching high scores, completing “x” amount of songs, getting a certain percentage of accuracy etc. but it also contains a set of challenges. These challenges like the achievements provide you with a feat or skill to complete in a particular song but these you can attempt at any time and will bring you directly to the song you need to complete it in.

Unlike the previous instalments of Sing It which really catered to a younger generation overflowing with Disney Channel and High School Musical favourites, Sing It: Pop Hits will appeal to a wide variety of individuals as it contains many popular songs from the radio more people will be familiar with. This version of Sing It was by far my favourite for this reason alone, since knowing the music meant I didn’t have to learn the songs from scratch in order to play and get a decent score. With the many different multiplayer modes perfect for family fun, challenges and a great song and music video selection this is definitely a title you will want to pick up.

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