We Sing Encore Mini-Review

Game: We Sing Ecore

Developer: Le Cortex

Publisher: Nordic Games

Available on: Wii Exclusive

Release Date: 20th August 2010 (buy now)

The We Sing brands brings singing to the Nintendo Wii. Much like Singstar on the Playstation and Lips on the Xbox 360, We Sing is all about video game karaoke. We take a look at the latest title in the franchise to see how it matches up with the rest of the music games market. Read on for the full review.

THE GAME

We Sing is the first of it’s kind to offer four player simultaneous multiplayer, this makes for some fantastic gameplay. Just invite over three of your friends and compete or co-operate on your favourite pop songs, it’s as simple as that.

The game looks and plays absolutely fantastic. Instead of multiple pitch bars (as with two player mode in Lips and Singstar), We Sing Encore features one pitch bar with each player having their own colour stream. Should a player miss a bar or be out of tune, their colour will be visible above or below the main song stream. However, if everyone is singing in harmony, the song stream will remain a solid colour. This brings another level of competition to the game, as you can always see which players are tripping up and a little go at them!

We Sing Encore features a number of single player and multiplayer modes, as well as awards (see: achievements) and customisable backgrounds. There’s plenty in this box to keep you and your friends entertained for hours.

There are also a healthy amount of harsh criticsms in the game, which in my eyes made the game a lot more fun, but I can see how it would be off-putting to some. If you perform poorly during a song, or even during a note, the game will not hesitate to tell you. “Awful” will pop-up on the screen, reminding that player of their lack of skill, to the amusement of everyone else!

Of course there is a training mode in We Sing Encore. The “Singing Lessons” are designed to make you a better player and actually help you enhance your singing abilities. A very cool (and sometimes necessary!) addition, it must be said.

If I had to pick one feature that stands We Sing Encore out from the crowd I’d probably have to go with the anti-cheat mechanisms that are built in. The geniuses at Le Cortex have allowed humming and/or tapping of the microphone to be registered on-screen, but neither will count towards your overall score – you have to actually sing along. It’s all in the pitch and rhythm. That’ll show ‘um!

However, all these great features are let down by one quite frustrating bug. There’s a very noticeable delay between the display and highlighting of lyrics with the actual vocal sounds. Meaning that you may see the words being displayed, but you were supposed to have sang them a few seconds ago. You really need to know the songs you’re playing, because the in-game mechanism for singing along is quite broken. How this bug could make it into the final production I’m not sure. At first I thought it was my imagination, but this is a very measurable (and re-produceable) problem. If it wasn’t for this one bug, the score you see at the end could have been very different.

THE SONGS

We Sing Encore has arguably more current pop songs than any other music game.

1. The B-52s – “Love Shack“
2. Black Eyed Peas – “Shut Up“
3. Bonnie Tyler – “Total Eclipse of the Heart“
4. Cheryl Cole – “Fight For This Love“
5. Coldplay – “Yellow“
6. Elton John – “Tiny Dancer“
7. Gloria Gaynor – “I Will Survive“
8. Gwen Stefani featuring Akon – “The Sweet Escape“
9. Jamiroquai – “Virtual Insanity“
10. Jimmy Ruffin – “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted“
11. Kaiser Chiefs – “Ruby“
12. Katrina & The Waves – “Walking On Sunshine“
13. Lady Gaga featuring Colby O’Donis & Akon – “Just Dance“
14. Lily Allen – “Smile“
15. Lou Bega – “Mambo No 5“
16. Lynyrd Skynrd – “Sweet Home Alabama“
17. Mika – “Grace Kelly“
18. Natasha Bedingfield – “Unwritten“
19. Pixie Lott – “Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)“
20. Plain White Ts – “Hey There Delilah“
21. Right Said Fred – “I’m Too Sexy“
22. Rihanna featuring Jay-Z – “Umbrella“
23. Robyn featuring Kleerup – “With Every Heartbeat“
24. Simply Red – “Holding Back The Years“
25. Soft Cell – “Tainted Love“
26. Spandau Ballet – “Gold“
27. The Supremes – “Baby Love“
28. Taio Cruz – “Break Your Heart“
29. The Veronicas – “Untouched“
30. Westlife – “Flying Without Wings“

The ten English songs that have been announced so far are:

1. Florence + The Machine – “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)“
2. Girls Aloud – “The Promise“
3. The Saturdays – “Up“
4. Will Young – “Leave Right Now“
5. Kasabian – “Fire“
6. S Club 7 – “Don’t Stop Movin’“
7. The Proclaimers – “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)“
8. N-Dubz – “I Need You“
9. Stereophonics – “Dakota“
10. The Lightning Seeds – “Three Lions“

The ten German songs that are exclusive to We Sing Vol. 2:

1. 2raumwohnung – 36 Grad
2. The Dandy Warhols – Bohemian Like You
3. Henry Valentino & Uschi – Im Wagen vor mir
4. Jürgen Marcus – Eine neue Liebe ist wie ein neues Leben
5. Pohlmann – Wenn Jetzt Sommer wär
6. Reamonn – Supergirl
7. Roy Black & Anita – Schon ist es auf der Welt zu sein
8. Stereophonics – Dakota
9. Tight Fit – Lion Sleeps Tonight
10. Toploader – Dancing in the Moonlight

We Sing Encore comes with two or four Logitech microphones (depending on the package purchased) and a very necessary USB hub, as the Wii only features two USB ports. The microphones are of great quality – as you’d expect from Logitech. The game itself is excellent fun and a must-buy for any karaoke loving, Wii owners. There is one major flaw holding it back, which we hope to see fixed in We Sing Robbie Williams (due for release in October 2010).