Singstar: Rock Ballads review

Christ, I hate these parties. We’re four Tequila and whatevers into a humid Eastside Friday and already Kath’s eyes have that telltale flicker. I’m wearing wing tipped polyester because Kath insisted the theme was nostalgia and I’m not a fan of irons. I may as well have worn glad wrap. “It’s an EIGHTIES theme,” berates a chipmunk face in my direction. Looking around, it looks more like the theme was non-attendance.

An hour later I’ve downed another two of those vile mixtures and my eyes have flicked towards a flashing blue light coming from the living room. Before I’ve even figured out what’s going on, Renee has shoved a red banded microphone in my hand, her nest of blonde hair frozen in a permanent gale. “Singstar! Rock Ballads!” she shrieks in some form of explanation. The obscene bravado that only the demon drink provides stiffens my stance and attempts to attach the two swirling images in front of me in a readable fashion.

Soon, the farts of fretless bass boom from the speakers and an imperceptible mass of slogan teed strangers on the couch are jeering, taunting, pre empting the chorus: “Take these broken wings!” “Mr Mister were a goddamned footnote in that decade,” I thought to myself, “why the hell have they got two tracks on here? Whose arse end of what barrel is being scraped?”

Scarecrow Nick has the blue microphone. After a cursory glance at me he’s got his head back, artery bulging from the neck as he strains for his characteristically perfect phrasing and pronunciation. Meanwhile I’m sponging sweat from my forehead and desperately trying to focus, slurring my words into consonant-free monotone like some far off lecturer.

Damn it, I’ve won! Muttering voices suggest I’m cheating by not singing the words and how this always happens with Singstar, but blah blah blah I don’t care about them now. I’m thumbing the pad through the tracks: Nickelback, Sugababes, Avril Lavigne, Tina Arena… What the hell? I check the package. It most definitely says, “Rock Ballads” and for a second I’m contemplating an open letter to Sony music on the definition of “Rock”.

Before I reach the conclusion that open letters are equally at odds with the definition of “rock”, someone’s grabbed the controller and put on Meatloaf’s “I would do anything for love (But I won’t do that.)” They look self congratulatory, safe in the knowledge they’ve picked out a classic. Seven and a half excruciating minutes later, I feel like congratulating myself for not punching the singer in the face. The mood is twisting now, that wretched uncomfortable yawning has set in. A pretty girl is even tapping on her mobile, perhaps hoping one of her string-alongs might shag some excitement into her night.

But then the opening chords to Roxette’s “It must have been love” kick in and text girl has thrown down her phone before she can press send. Like magic the mood has picked up. Strangers are pressing their faces into each other, makeup chipping at the press of designer stubble, as each struggles to have their voices heard through the straining speakers. It’s tempting to put on another Roxette number, but some mad genius stabs at Poison’s “Every Rose has its thorn”. Nick looks like he’s sharing a moment with someone now, as if in some crazy alternate universe the song’s simplistic southern sentiments might somehow grant passage into heaven itself. His girlfriend disappears briefly and we hear the strains of a fast emptying stomach even over the solo, but she’s back wiping her mouth even as the last chorus begins.

From there, it’s all a blend. Even though for every classic number by Queen, Toto or Duran Duran a Lone Star or The Calling number elbows its way in like a cloddish older brother, when the momentum is swinging this hard you just close your eyes and croak like you’re in rapture.

I’ve seen this game before. Years back. People called it lots of things, but at the end of the day it was just karaoke, plain and simple. The people who are made the game knew that too. Mikes, speakers, booze and songs that everybody knows get thrown into a blender and a license to print money pops out. The only difference this time is that some London git has hopped up from his work station, headed down to the local pisser on entertainment Tuesday and taken note of the type of songs that are actually getting people up from their cheap pints. Good on ‘em, only took ‘em ten goes.

A first look at the Sandisk Sansa View

Intro

Despite a lengthy delay and complete redesign, Sandisk’s flagship PMP is finally hitting the marketplace. Introducing the Sandisk Sansa View. Gone are the face-hogging 4 inch screen and built in speaker, in favour of a simplified interface and a less dominating display.

Upside

One of our niggles with the Sansa E200 series interface was the way its face buttons were tucked up against the scroll wheel. They’re gone this time around. And while we’re no nearer to getting a touch sensitive wheel from any manufacturer outside of Apple, with the Sansa view we get the next best thing: A rotating scroll wheel with three clickable points, including “play/pause” and “menu”. Off to one side, the Sansa view even includes a standalone dedicated “home” button, but we have no idea what that function was inspired by.

The 16 gig View is certainly one of the larger capacity flash players on the market, especially considering its ability to accept additional micro SD cards to the tune of 8 gig. After some quick calculations, that puts Sandisk’s latest pretty close to the capacity of an HDD player, except with all the juice-saving benefits of flash memory.

That memory comes in handy when you’re talking up a player’s ability to run unconverted video. The E200 series’ video abilities blew chunks, in that it required large videos to be broken down into smaller pieces for outputting. That’s not the case with the View, so long as you’re looking at its natively supported formats of MPEG4, WMV and H.264. Then it’s just a matter of drag and drop, no software needed.

Downside

There’s no doubt that the View is a diminutive PMP. At its thinnest, it’s a mere 8.8mm deep, which is slim but not nano-slim. The thing is, with a 2.4 inch screen and its scroll wheel, in dimensions the View is approaching the size of an HDD ipod. Once you’re carrying something of that size, surely part of you wants the nearly limitless capacity that a hard disk gives. Especially if you’re all about video.

What’s more, on the View you’ll still have to use a converter to play your divx/xvid format video. Despite this popular format being natively supported on Zen players, that’s not the case here. All those ipod last-gen owners looking for an upgrade will also find that their AAC files are still not supported on the Sansa View.

But perhaps the most telling downside has almost certainly come at the expense of the slimline design. See, unlike the e200 series, the battery is no longer replaceable. “Sure,” you might say, “Ipod has never had an (easily) replaceable battery.” To that we reply, “but they do have a helluva lot more service centres where you can get that done.”

Outlook

With all this video functionality, it is telling that Sandisk chose to base the design around a 2.4” screen rather than the proposed 4”. When looking at the View’s closest competitor, the Creative Zen Digital Media player, it’s clear that Sandisk have opted to compete with the Nanos of the world rather than the traditional landscape format PMP.

To do a direct comparison, for twenty dollars more than the 8gig Nano you’re getting an expandable, slim line player with an FM radio, better quality audio, a built in microphone and a screen that’s larger than that of the ipod Classic. But that’s the problem. Most people are still going to see a far more heralded product at a lower price point. In addition, the sixteen gig version of the View retails at another twenty dollars more than the current-gen ipod Classic. Sure, $279 is a price point that should knock the Zen out of the water, but when you have your sights set on the Apple behemoth, costing less should surely be a priority.