Karaoke Revolution Country First Look

Konami has been iterating its Karaoke Revolution series for several years now, but it's never focused an installment of this barroom-hijinks simulator on a particular genre of music--until now. Soon we'll be graced with Karaoke Revolution Country, a new joint venture between Konami and Country Music Television that, as the name implies, will bring the phenomenon of karaoke into heartland living rooms everywhere. We got a look at the game at Konami's recent press event to see how well it'll live up to the standards set by previous games in the series.

Before we get to the music, we can say the country edition of Karaoke Revolution seems like it'll boast all the pertinent features we saw last time around. EyeToy support is back in, for instance, along with all the quickplay and one- and two-mic variations you'd expect, plus an eight-player party mode. Of course, the backgrounds and especially the avatars have been updated for this new release--we saw available characters sporting cowboy hats, boots, mullets, and all the other accoutrements you'd expect. The game even carries the CMT branding, so you know it's got a legitimate degree of redneck in it.

The core of any rhythm game is of course its song lineup, and it looks like this twangin' edition of Karaoke Revolution shouldn't disappoint country fans, with purportedly more than 30 songs on offer. There are plenty of favorites, from "Crazy" to "The Gambler," "I Walk the Line," and even the theme from The Dukes of Hazzard. But then you'll also get some newer country hits like "Wide Open Spaces" and "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)," so fans of this sort of music should have plenty of variety to sing along with.

Aside from the obvious changes in style and music, Karaoke Revolution Country seems to be formatted and presented just like the last few games in the series, which should work out fine, considering there wasn't anything particularly wrong with those. We'll bring you more info on the game soon.