The singing formula is solid. The dancing is fun. It just feels it's missing a few things...

User Rating: 7 | SingStar Dance PS3
First off, I'm new to the Singstar franchise. I love singing, and I enjoy karaoke. Therefore, I decided to pick up Singstar and give it a try. I've played Guitar Hero 3 and Dance Dance Revolution before. Singstar is a good party game with solid singing, but it feels it's missing a few things, some that are fairly basic to the genre. It doesn't have a career mode, which I feel leaves the game unfulfilled for those who want to hone their skills and put them to the ultimate test rather than the old-fashioned way of just making the best score possible. If Guitar Hero and Rock Band have career modes, why can't Singstar? I also feel it's missing an online multiplayer mode. Most rhythm games have them nowadays, and they're usually the key to the games' success. Afterall, this is an age where online multiplayer is most popular. Again, Guitar Hero and Rock Band have online multiplayer. I feel it's needed for a game like this to have such a component as it allows people to compete with others in order to become the best and show off your skills.

What's also needed for music games is a Practice mode, and this game doesn't have that either. So it's trial-and-error, in the most extreme situation. Be prepared to play songs over and over until you've got the pitches and moves correct. So if you don't know all the songs perfectly, be prepared to struggle until you get them.

The game has a great setlist to choose from, but it seems to be lacking here as well. Only 30 songs to choose from. That's much less of most rhythm and music games that I've played. The rest you have to buy, and I'm not the biggest fan of shelling out cash for additional content, especially if the game had so little to begin with.
The singing and dancing are fun. The dancing can be hard to imitate, but with practice it's doable. The accuracy of the game to detect correct notes, rhythms, and movements is also not that cohesive. A few times, I was singing a wrong pitch that ended up with a "cool" or "good" rating, and vice versa.

Overall, Singstar is a fun, simple party game. But perhaps too simple. It would really benefit the franchise with added modes and more options and accuracy could be better. It just doesn't seem to live up to the competition the genre faces.