23 Dec, 2011
Title: We Sing UK Hits
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Developer: Le Cortex
Publisher: Nordic Games Publishing
TL;DR: Basically your bog standard karaoke game; check the track listing before buying.
Family Friendly? Nope! Click here for more information.
I can’t sing. I can’t hold a note to save my life, and my voice sounds terrible no matter what the pitch or song choice. That said, I hoped We Sing UK Hits would go easy on me and provide a bit of light-hearted fun during the dark winter evenings.
You’ll probably have heard of We Sing; it’s a decent karaoke game which came out on the Wii in 2009, the first of its kind to support four players with their own microphones. Shortly afterwards came We Sing Encore, followed by a few regional specific games such as UK Hits.
The game comes complete with forty tracks (there is no DLC – what you see is what you get), with a good mix of genres and difficulty. Most songs come complete with the music video, but some are unavailable. As my luck would have it the first track I tried, The House of the Rising Sun, was one such example of this.
I selected Bananarama – Venus instead, which thankfully came in tow with its fabulous video. It was quickly apparent that something was wrong after the first thirty seconds: I had failed to score a single point, and the game kept telling me I was too quiet. At least, I think that’s what it was trying to say – the words disappeared almost as soon as they appeared. I raised my voice to the kind of level I feared would send my neighbours straight on to Environmental Health at the local council and tried again, with mixed success. My voice was now registering, but was failing to score more than ‘Bad!’ and the occasional ‘Ok’.
But never fear – UK Hits comes with singing lessons, which I duly tried out next. Alas, you have to complete each lesson before you move on to the next, and even the first trial was hard. I tried my best again and again to hold the note as instructed, but it was absolutely no use.
The game’s saving grace came in the form of its multiplayer mode, which comes in several different flavours: Group Battle, We Sing, Versus, Pass the Mic, First to X, Expert, Blind and Marathon. When singing in a group, especially after a few drinks, it really doesn’t matter how crap the game insists you are and the good genre mix will please almost all audiences.
With that in mind, the track list isn’t quite as good as that of We Sing or We Sing Encore – if you plan on only investing in one singing title, I would suggest you spend your hard earned pennies on one of them instead.
The track list will make or break any karaoke game, regardless of its other merits or flaws. With that in mind, I would strongly advise you to take a good look at the list below before you decide whether or not to invest in UK Hits.
Track list:
Adele – Chasing Pavements
Amy Winehouse – Rehab (Amy Winehouse song)
The Animals – The House of the Rising Sun
Bananarama – Venus
The Beautiful South – A Little Time
Blur – Girls & Boys
Bucks Fizz – Making Your Mind Up
Coldplay – Speed of Sound
David Bowie – Let’s Dance
Dido – White Flag
Dusty Springfield – Son Of A Preacher Man
East 17 – Stay Another Day
Eliza Doolittle – Pack Up
Elton John – Candle In The Wind
Example – Kickstarts
Florence + the Machine – You’ve Got The Love
Gabrielle – Dreams
Happy Mondays – Step On
James Blunt – You’re Beautiful
Jay Sean feat. Lil Wayne – Down
Jessie J – Do It Like A Dude
Kim Wilde – Kids in America
Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
Lulu & The Luvvers – Shout
Madness – It Must Be Love
McFly – 5 Colours In Her Hair
Plan B – She Said
Pulp – Common People
Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now
Queen & David Bowie – Under Pressure
Radiohead – Creep
Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
The Saturdays – Missing You
Spice Girls – Who Do You Think You Are
Sugababes – Push The Button
Texas – I Don’t Want A Lover
Tinchy Stryder Ft. N-Dubz – Number 1
The Ting Tings – That’s Not My Name
Tinie Tempah – Pass Out
Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go
The Good:
- Integrated singing lessons – if you can sing
- Good mix of musical genres
- Fun multiplayer mode
The Bad:
- Integrated singing lessons – if you can’t sing
- Not family friendly
- Not as good as other We Sing titles
Family Focus
I was astonished to discover that UK Hits came with a PEGI: 12 rating. This kind of game should suit a family perfectly, particularly over Christmas as a way of entertaining kids and adults alike, which makes the decision to include songs with questionable lyrics baffling in my opinion. If you are planning to let your kids loose on this one, listen to the rap songs yourself first to determine which are and aren’t suitable for your children (although this can obviously have the undesirable effect of making make them want to listen to the ‘adult’ song even more so…). Some of the videos which accompany the rap songs are also very unsuitable for young and impressionable children. Sadly, there’s no way to block them.
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