SingStar ABBA review

It’s tough to review a game like SingStar: ABBA, because it does what it does very, very well – the question is, does anyone want a game that does what this game does? We’re going to guess the answer is yes, both because we have faith in publisher Sony’s marketing research and because every time we’re anywhere near a karaoke machine, there’s a group of females shouting out ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”.

The question is: Do you really need 19 more ABBA songs? Sure, most folks will happily run through “Take a Chance on Me” or “Mamma Mia” once or twice, but what’s it worth to you to be able to belt out “Ring Ring” or “One of Us”? Yeah, that’s about what we thought. Just for the sake of conversation, here’s the total list of all 20 songs on the PS2 version.

Chiquitita
Dancing Queen
Does Your Mother Know
Fernando
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man after Midnight)
I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do
Knowing Me, Knowing You
Mamma Mia
Money, Money, Money
One of Us
Ring Ring
SOS
Summer Night City
Super Trouper
Take a Chance on Me
Thank You for the Music
The Name of the Game
The Winner Takes It All
Voulez-Vous
Waterloo

So… worth $30 for you? Maybe, maybe not. But we’re going to go with not. We understand that the PS2 doesn’t have downloadable capability like the PS3 version, so track packs like this are necessary. But we just can’t justify the price tag for anyone but the most devoted ABBA fans. We applaud the focus, but the flip side of that is a narrower market and decreased value to those of us who don’t know which of the ladies is Anni-Frid Lyngstad and which is Agnetha Faltskog. Knock it down to $20 and we’ll talk.

Dec 8, 2008