SingStar is the perfect game for those of us who love karaoke but live in tiny towns out in the country, where access to such grand fun is very limited. Now we can gather up to eight of our friends (and make sure they bring alcohol!) then go nuts in our very own living rooms!

The concept is simple: plug the two mics into your PS2 and sing to your heart's content! You can choose between around thirty songs of the given edition's theme, and you're then given points depending on your abilities to hit the right notes at the right time. Certain bonuses can be earned by hitting especially difficult notes (like "Guitar!" in I Believe in a Thing Called Love). After each song you're ranked according to your score - will you be a Lead Singer, Hopeful or plain Tone Deaf? If you become the latter then the voices in the game boo you - your friends might too, so watch out! Still, if you do find yourself struggling then you could always practice in the single player mode and then beat them all!

SingStar's main strength however is a party game, and Pass the Mic is the best way to play. You and your teammates go through different challenges against the other team, like taking it in turns to sing parts of the songs or battling one-on-one with your opponents, then the team with the highest score at the end of each round wins. Since its debut in May 2004, the SingStar series has enjoyed huge success. With a massive eleven sequels to the original in the UK and even more in certain countries like Germany and Spain, it's a real money-spinner, and with good reason. The concept is original and takes basic karaoke 'sing-along' fun to the next level. The design is appealing and if you plug in your EyeToy camera then you can even watch yourself singing on-screen!

I've had so many good times with the original game that my feelings towards the series are quite nostalgic - and consequently I was really looking forward to trying out SingStar: Rock Ballads. Unfortunately though, I was a bit disappointed. Maybe Sony are just trying to make our wait for the PS3 SingStar less dull, or maybe they're trying to squeeze as much money out of innocent, karaoke-loving people as possible - but with every new release the content gets thinner and thinner - and Rock Ballads is sadly no exception.

First of all, there are some odd choices of songs. Since when has Jon Secada's Just Another Day been of the rock genre? And Too Lost in You seems more like mainstream pop than something that belongs side by side with It Must Have Been Love and Black Velvet. Of course, there are golden classics like The Show Must Go On and Time After Time, along with the more recent Where Ever You Will Go by The Calling and This is How You Remind Me by Nickelback. Avril Lavigne, Anastacia and Meatloaf get squeezed in too, but they're not quite able to drown out the excessive overflow of high-pitched songs performed by men with crazy quantities of Eighties hair, tights jeans and drawn-out, moaning guitar solos. Another weird thing about Rock Ballads is the medleys that are put in, like the 'Blossoming Love Medley', the 'Breakup Ballads Medley' and the 'Random Medley', to mention a few. I found these quite, well, random; it just seems silly to sing the choruses of six different songs and then be awarded the rank of Lead Singer. The fact that most of the songs in Rock Ballads are quite similar also bothered me a bit. I didn't know most of them, but I could get at least 6500 points in all of them. This made the game a little boring, something that wasn't helped by the general slowness of the songs.

Even though SingStar is supposed to be a party game, I'm worried that SingStar: Rock Ballads, due to its content's general all out of love, left outside alone, just another day without you feeling, will be a party killer and leave everyone depressed and not up for going out - although it will be great for channelling the angst of a recent painful break-up! SingStar used to be such a great game but Rock Ballads, while trying something different, doesn't really fit in with the upbeat part ethos of most of its previous iterations. Still, I'm hoping that when they get the PS3 edition polished off, it will once again rise to its former pedestal as king of karaoke!

Reviewed by Katrine Kyhl for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).