We Sing Encore Nintendo Wii review

As I write this, I’m just over a month away from my 30th birthday. Grey hairs are appearing on my head and occasionally even sprouting out of my nostrils; sometimes, parts of my body ache for no reason. I’m becoming less tolerant of people under 21, and my slowing metabolism is slowly beginning to manifest itself as extra inches around my waist.

Clearly the years are catching up on me, and I’m becoming increasingly aware of a fast approaching and seemingly inevitable truth: I’m probably not going to become a world-famous singer/songwriter. I’d like to blame that on the unfairness of the music industry, but the fact is I just can’t sing or write songs – which makes me perfect to review We Sing Encore for the Wii.

Like other karaoke games, regardless of your ability, it’s fun to sing along with and against your mates. Indeed, truly talented people should stay away because, frankly, they’re no fun. If you’re not into this genre, then you probably wouldn’t reading this review in the first place and, to be honest, there’s nothing in this game that would be likely to make you change your mind. Fans of singing games, however, will find plenty of entertainment here, and a fairly good variety of songs (although it’s worth noting that they seem to favour high vocal ranges, and there’s really nothing here for the baritones among us).

Of the game’s features, the one that stands out is the ability to have up to four people playing at once. The review copy of the game had only two mics, but you can also use any other Logitech USB microphones from other Wii games, and you can plug them into any USB hub. This last feature is welcome, because compatibility could have so easily been limited to some expensive proprietary device.

Other than that, it’s pretty much what you’d expect from this kind of game: you sing along with songs, and you’re rated on your performance. There are a variety of game modes to keep things interesting, but let’s face it, they all involve either singing on your own or with other people.

There are some singing lessons in the Solo part of the game, but they didn’t seem terribly good. Unless there was something wrong with my set-up, it seems the game doesn’t generate reference tones in the lessons, so you don’t know what note you’re supposed to be singing. As a result, you have to go through the rather embarrassing process of humming random notes until you find the right one.

This isn’t a particularly important, though, and overall We Sing Encore provides a pretty good singing experience. It’s a shame there’s no equivalent to SingStar’s SingStore, but that’s down to the limitations of the console and not this game. If you’re eager to piss off your neighbours with your tuneless warbling, this is a great way to do it.

We Sing Encore is out now and available from the Den Of Geek Store.