Product Description

Step into the spotlight and become and idol. Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore delivers the most realistic recreation of the American Idol experience with an all-new next generation game engine and 40 smash hits from the 70's, 80's, and 90's and today. Grab the mics and challenge your friends to find out who will be the next superstar and face the music as Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson critique your performances. Millions share the dream. Now you can live it!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2441 in Video Games
• Size: Wii Version
• Color: Wii Version
• Brand: Konami
• Model: American Idol Video Game
• Released on: 2008-02-06
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo Wii
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 2.75" h x 5.50" w x 7.50" l, .94 pounds

Features

• Compete online head-to-head games multiplayer support for up to 8 players
• Utilize the included microphone
• 40 all-new hit songs including music featured on the TV show
• New un-lockable video content from the American Idol TV Series

Customer Reviews

Fun!
If you've played some of the other Karaoke Revolution games before, the format for this title will be very familiar to you. I have Karaoke Revolution Party for the Gamecube, and this game is very comparable to that title. Interesting American Idol videos showing past contestants' performances can be unlocked by achieving various goals.

My only complaint is that you apparently are able to download more songs on the X Box and Playstation versions, but not the Wii. Given that the Wii can connect to the Internet, I don't understand why this feature was left out.

Most importantly, here is a list of the 40 songs available. Three of them (More Than a Feeling, Over the Rainbow, and What is Love) have to be unlocked by achieving various platinum record amounts. There is a cool menu feature under "Extras" that show all the unlockable items and what is required to get them.

"Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden
"Black Velvet" - Alannah Myles
"Bohemian Rhapsody" - Queen
"Close My Eyes Forever" - Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford
"Come Sail Away" - Styx
"Copacabana" - Barry Manilow
"Glamorous" - Fergie
"Heart of Glass" - Blondie
"Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" - Fuel
"Holiday" - Madonna
"How to Save a Life" - The Fray
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" - Rolling Stones
"I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" - Aerosmith
"(I Just) Died in Your Arms" - Cutting Crew
"In the Air Tonight" - Phil Collins
"Irreplaceable" - Beyoncé
"It Ends Tonight" - All American Rejects
"It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" - Billy Joel
"Knocking on Heaven's Door" - Guns N' Roses
"Lips of an Angel" - Hinder
"Midnight Train to Georgia" - Gladys Knight and the Pips
"More Than a Feeling" - Boston
"My Cherie Amour" - Stevie Wonder
"My Heart Will Go On" - Celine Dion
"Over the Rainbow" - Katherine McPhee
"Put Your Records On"- Corinne Bailey Rae
"Rio" - Duran Duran
"September" - Earth Wind & Fire
"Sister Christian" - Night Ranger
"Sweet Dreams" - Eurythmics
"Tainted Love" - Soft Cell
"These Words" - Natasha Bedingfield
"Time of the Season" - The Zombies
"Tiny Dancer" - Elton John
"Too Little Too Late" - JoJo
"Unfaithful" - Rihanna
"Walking On Sunshine" - Katrina & The Waves
"What is Love?" - Haddaway
"You Can't Hurry Love" - Diana Ross and The Supremes
"You're Beautiful" - James Blunt

Lots of fun but some serious omissions
I played Karaoke Revolution on the PS2 a lot (I love doing karaoke) and enjoyed it. But, I have a Wii, so I was excited when Karaoke Revolution came out for the Wii.

The simplest way to describe Karaoke Revolution is "Match the pitch and timing of the song to score points." When you choose a player, and choose a song, the song scrolls across the bottom of the screen. Above the song's lyrics, the game shows a simplified music staff with empty note tubes. These tubes indicate a pitch for the phrase.

You fill the note tubes by singing the correct pitch at the correct time into the microphone (you may transpose the song up or down an octave if necessary). After a few phrases, the game shows a mark on the display---and the more notes you hit correctly, the higher you score.

If you enjoy karaoke, this game is a lot of fun. The game even has what it calls "True Duets", where 2 people (2 microphones needed). With True Duets, two people each sing a part.

For a greater challenge, there are 4 difficulty levels. The higher the difficulty level, the more notes you need to get right in a measure, and the more accurately you need to hit each pitch.

To keep things fresh, there are several modes of play, ranging from "Quick play" (just pick a song and go), to various lengths of "American Idol" contests. There are also several ways 2 (or more) players can be involved, such as head-to-head battle, both take part in an American Idol contest or a knock out.

If you wondered "How would I do on American Idol?" this game partially fulfills that fantasy---the 3 famous judges are there and judge you based on how well you do.

So what is the down side with the game?

First of all, there are a very small number of pre-set characters (all the same body type) you can use. You can clothe them slightly differently, but this is totally unlike the PS2 version, where you can choose an exact body type and save the unique character. On the PS2, this allows two people to start with the same face, but customize it differently.

In addition, if you do change how the character is clothed, the picture you see doesn't change. This makes it difficult to find the character you created.

You can unlock more characters, but it doesn't significantly add to the list.

Beyond this, there are no downloadable songs for the Wii version---a feature that was promised but not to date delivered. Even if you love doing karaoke, you'll eventually get sick of doing the same 40 songs over and over again.

Finally, the high score list doesn't keep track of the different difficulty levels separately. This makes the high score useless, because a score of 100000 (Perfect) of Easy will overwrite a score of 90000 on Expert.

If Komani addressed these shortcomings in their next Karaoke Revolution title, I think it would be a best seller for the Wii: add download capability, add much more flexibility to player models, make the high scores separate for each difficulty level.

However, the game is still a lot of fun (if you love karaoke), but it feels cheap and rushed because of where Konami cut corners---player models being the worst offender.

Wish there were more songs
We have had such great fun with this one. It does go easy on the judging but since there are not a lot of recent songs the kids know, I am glad for that. That being said, I wish there were more songs. We have already unlocked the extra songs. I wish there were more of the recent songs also. While for us adults, Bohemian Rhapsody is a fun song to try these songs are difficult for younger children to sing. The song selection seems more geared toward the 35-45 crowd.