Got a copy of SingStar 90s sent to me last week by Sony. I was a little...unsure. Yeah, it's sold over 8 million units, but personally speaking, I've always found the series a little lacking. It tends to cater to certain demographics. Being a twenty-something straight male, I have not yet been catered for. SingStar 90s is no different, but to its credit it does a better job than its predecessors.

Rather than a bevy of shrieking pop stars, the 90s edition sports some, ah, funnier tracks. More inclusive. Like "Baby Got Back". Oh, and NKOTB's "Step by Step". And Poison's "Unskinny Bop". All a bit naff when sober, but shit, what are the chances you'll ever play this thing sober?

To test it out, I took the game along to a party on Saturday night. About 3 hours in, once I was convinced everyone was suitably maggoted on cheap booze, I threw it on. Normally, SingStar going on at a party does two things. It excites the ladies, and it exiles the men. Not this time, the room was captivated. "Step by Step", Seal's "Kiss From a Rose", "U Can't Touch This"...all went on, all got a bunch of drunk people singing along.

Problem is, the whole thing quickly ran out of steam. After singing a few tracks they'd loved, people scanned through the list, found little else of interest and walked off. Just like every other SingStar session I've ever seen. The tracklist for 90s is an improvement, definitely, but it's still too scattergun an approach to make this game more than a 30-minute party distraction.

But hey, chin-up SCEE. The 30 minutes I spent playing this one was 28 minutes more than I, or a lot of other people at the party, had spent with the game previously. So you're getting there.

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