"Had
it featured the original songs by the original artists and had a more
workable interface, it could have been lots of fun."
Get
on Da Mic is a hip-hop take on the popular and well-reviewed Karaoke
Revolution.Here, instead
of trying to match their vocals to pop music, players must rap along to
a large group of hip-hop favorites.Get on Da Mic requires a microphone or headset to play,
obviously, and allows players to put the microphone to work in a career
mode, a freestyle mode, and a handful of head-to-head modes.
The
first thing most players ask when confronted with a rhythm game is,
“Are the songs any good?”Well,
I'm not a rap aficionado or anything, but I was happy to see a good
mixture of classic hip-hop (like the notoriously catchy “Rapper's
Delight”), gangsta rap, and innovative modern rap.Unfortunately, as soon as the songs started playing, I was no
longer so happy.Get on Da
Mic does not feature the
original artist recordings, but instead uses soulless recreations.This has two affects on the game.First, it is suddenly not nearly as much fun to just play
around with, and, also, it is much more difficult to play because the
rhythms and vocals of the originals are ingrained and the new versions
don't match.
Once
that disappointment is set aside, players are confronted with a number
of game play flaws.Instead
of asking players to sing in the correct key, ala Karaoke Revolution,
Get on Da Mic instead simply asks players to match the cadence of the
rappers (what you actually say and how you say it is unimportant).The on-screen visual cues are clumsy and make it very difficult
to time your raps if you don't already know the song by heart, and you
don't since these are all-new, censored versions of those songs.Since it is basically a rhythm game, I'm not sure why the
developers couldn't have study the oh, twenty or so, rhythm games one
the
market that have workable interfaces and went with a similar approach.Even if the on-screen cues were better, the censoring of the
songs using #$%^'s and the like make it even harder to adjust to the
rhythm of the song.Finally,
the game often makes odd choices about what players are asked to rap and
what the recording artist raps.
If,
unlike me, a player really enjoyed Get on Da Mic, the game offers a good
number of modes and a fair bit of replay value.On top of the basic single-player pick up and play mode, there is
a career mode that allows
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successful
rappers to buy hip-hop apparel and accessories along with cars, homes
and yachts with their winnings.There
are apparently over 15,000 available items, so it should take a while to
collect everything if that is your plan.Get on Da Mic also features EyeToy compatibility making it
possible to see the player on the television as they go about their
business, which might be appealing in a party situation where making fun
of the player is par for the course.
Overall,
I was really disappointed in Get on Da Mic.Had it featured the original songs by the original artists and
had a more workable interface, it could have been lots of fun.As it is, the game is a chore to play and is only recommended for
hardcore rap fans (and by that I mean hardcore fans of rap, not fans of
hardcore rap, of course).