By Sherwin Loh

SORRY KBox but I will not be stepping into your karaoke bars ever again.

Especially not when Microsoft has improved on its much maligned singing game and produced a more polished and fun party experience that can be had at home.

With 45 new songs and some tweaked gameplay, Lips: Number One Hits is fast losing its label as a one-hit wonder.

While the original game suffered from a poor mix of songs across the decades, one thing that made it stand out was the wireless, motion-sensing microphones that were bundled with it.

Alas, randomly shaking the mics to mimic a tambourine or to replicate Elvis-type movements felt a tad forced then.

This time, movements are incorporated as part of the game, much like in Rock Band, where singers tap their mics during instrument solos.

Players' Xbox 360 avatars also make short appearances in the game, telling players when and how to swing their arms or point towards the sky, to score greater points.

Singing is still done the same way although pitch bars appear with lyrics and wannabe pop acts can croon to their favourite tunes.

One major improvement is the song list, which, as the title suggests, has established a higher standard of musical accomplishment.

Cue Coldplay's Viva La Vida, I'm Yours by Jason Mraz and Apologize by OneRepublic featuring Timbaland.

Personally, after watching the embarrassing YouTube video of the Korean teen tearing up Mariah Carey's Touch My Body, even I was inclined to try out the song, just for laughs.

And if the 40 songs within are not your taste, each game comes with a free code to select one of three bonus song packs, with five tunes in each.

Visually, the interface has been updated and now lists all songs in your game library, including those from your personal collection. Lips allows you to sing to your own MP3 tracks, minus the lyrics and music video. You can also get tracks from the Xbox Marketplace for about 160 MS points per track.

Despite having only about a hundred or so songs to choose from, the online store had some great gems like Concrete Blonde's Joey and Sarah McLachlan's Building A Mystery.

However, having Lips at home will probably not make me give up my other music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

There are some quirks in Lips. For instance, while the original Lips game is compatible with the sequel, it uses the disc swop method to toggle between songs on both games. I much prefer being able to copy the songs from the original to the console's hard drive and accessing it from there.

The sequel comes as a standalone title or bundled with two mics. If you already have a pair, do not bother getting another: the game does not allow the four-player option that it says it does.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

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