The moment I laid eyes on the Lips microphones, I was intrigued. You can tell they're plastic, but they don't feel cheap -- they've got a bit of heft to 'em. They're wireless, and they've also got accelerometers, which allow you to perform gestures midsong for more points. But it's the sleek design that really caught my attention: The mic head locks in place to hide the battery pack, and bottom of the handle's beautifully dotted with pulsating blue, purple, and white lights. I was hooked. And, desperately, I needed to know: Is Lips worth the LEDs its peripherals are lit by?
Lips comes with 40 songs out of the box, which, as far as numbers go, doesn't seem too plentiful -- even if you factor in the promised day-one downloadable content. I mean, how many times can you expect to sing the same songs over and over before you're sick to death of 'em? (The clear exception: hearing coworkers hit that defining high note in a-ha's "Take On Me." That moment happily lives on forever in my memory.) To cushion the short track list, developer iNiS (Elite Beat Agents) offers three minigames that you can play while singing any track. One's a co-op affair where, as you sing, two onscreen characters get closer and closer -- time your mic gestures right, and they'll eventually kiss. The second minigame's a "rock-off," where the best-performing player knocks out the opponent. The third sees you attempting to last until the end of a song by dumping water (via a tipping mic motion) on a sparking bomb fuse.
All songs -- except those that predate the video era -- feature official music videos, and Lips even includes a few hilarious stand-in clips (like the kind that play when karaokeing) categorized by genre, which is helpful when you use your own music. Yes, you can import your own songs from any Xbox 360-compatible device (meaning Zune, iPod, memory stick, and PC), and Lips will use its vocal-filtering software to approximate the melody it uses to score your vocalizations. Best of all, with the Jukebox mode, you can have all your songs playing on your TV without the HUD during a party. If someone wants to croon away, they only need to pick up the mic, and they're instantly into the song.
Features aside, the biggest difference from other music-based games is that you can't fail a song (except in the Bomb minigame, where the song appropriately stops once you've exploded). There's still a scoring system, though: You gain points based on how well you're matching a song's rhythm, pitch, and even lyrics. All the songs are unlocked from the start, but as you gain points, you earn higher and higher ranks within the game, as well as collect each song's medals. So, nothing about Lips is punitive -- it's all additive and positive reinforcement.
And that's when it finally hit me: Lips looks like what I was hoping Wii Music would be, albeit with a distinct focus on singing. I want a great party game that'll let me easily have musical fun with my family members or friends. I want something with goals and objectives so I can feel that sense of accomplishment us gamers yearn for. Most of all, I want a game that features satisfactory payoff for minimal know-how. Lips promises all that, and I hope it delivers.
