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Lips is getting its DLC act together, with Microsoft today announcing a raft of new tracks to be made available over the next few weeks. Most suck. But not all. There's still Bobby Brown.
Let's get this out of the way now. Yes, Lips is a shameless rip-off of Sony's massively-successful SingStar franchise. From intent to mechanics, the mission brief for the iNiS team was never "make an original, inspiring music title for the Xbox 360". It was "do SingStar, but on the Xbox 360". And that's exactly how we're going to assess the game.
While Singstar's holiday fare is fairly Christmas-centric, Microsoft's Lips takes the more politically correct path, offering up a little something made out of clay to help balance out the holiday cheer.
We know Microsoft have gone bundle mad in Europe this Christmas, but Australia had been spared. Until now. Take a look at Microsoft's "See, Hear & Play" bundle for the Australasian market.
There's a really fun interview up at Gamasutra with Keiichi Yano, chief creative officer of iNiS (the Ouendan series and Elite Beat Agents). The subject is ostensibly Lips, the recently released 360 karaoke title, but a lot of ground is covered in terms of game design and future potential. My favourite part of the discussion is when Yano gets into the decision not to include a fail condition, and instead allow (possibly drunk) warblers to mangle music to their hearts' content:
Over the next two weeks motion-friendly Xbox 360 karaoke game Lips will be getting seven new songs to add to its 40 title repertoire. The first batch lands today, the second next week.
And Microsoft USA were doing such a bang-up job of promoting Lips! Creepy robot heads, chirpy, disembodied lips...great stuff. A real step forward. Really knocking down the barriers preventing men from playing what's viewed as a girly genre. But these British ads? Two steps back.
I picture Microsoft Europe not as a bunch of men in suits, but as a single man up on stage at a karaoke night. Dressed in his best Freddie Mercury white lycra and shelltops, belting out "DONT STOP ME NOW". Because, believe it or not, this is the TENTH Xbox 360 bundle Europe will be seeing this holiday season. Tenth. This one's aimed squarely at the casual user/lapsed Sony fanboy, as it offers an Arcade 360, a copy of Lips and your only chance of ever seeing the iNiS logo on the front of a console.
Microsoft will attempt to steal SingStar's karaoke crown this holiday with the release of Lips, the Xbox 360 party game developed by iNiS, mostly famous for musical fare like Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents. Today, the company announced further details on Lips, including the 40 song strong soundtrack, new gameplay modes and further details on how you'll use your iPod or Zune in the game.
The soundtrack — full listing after the jump — features a healthy mix of musical styles, from pop to hip hop to country, with modern day and classic karaoke classics. Stand bys, like Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" and Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees," are wisely included alongside newer jams like Lupe Fiasco's "Superstar", a rapping and singing duet.
