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 24 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 25 songs (the * songs aren’t in the PS2 version, in case you’re wondering).

Chiquitita
Dancing Queen
Does Your Mother Know
Fernando
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man after Midnight)
Happy New Year*
Head over Heels*
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 Day Before You Came*
The Name of the Game
The Winner Takes It All
Under Attack*
Voulez-Vous
Waterloo
When All Is Said and Done*

So… worth $40 for you? Maybe, maybe not. But we’re going to go with not. The big problem is that the PS3 has the SingStore, where we could have downloaded only the tracks we wanted. Hence, tossing out what is essentially a track pack is pretty much useless to us.

Nobody but the most die-hard, devoted ABBA fans are going to want all of these songs, and they’re the only ones to whom this price tag – which is $10 higher than the PS2 price for this same game – is fair. We applaud the single-artist 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 put it in the online store. There’s no need for a hard copy.

Dec 8, 2008