Get On Da Mic - Playstation 2 (PS2) Reviews


	Platform Playstation 2 Genre Party Game Publisher Eidos Developer Artificial Mind and Movement ESRB T (Teen) Released Q4 2004

- Multiple modes - EyeToy compatibility - Lots of stuff to collect

- Terrible music interface - Sad, muzak-like versions of the original songs

Review: Mad Maestro (PS2) Review: PaRappa the Rapper 2 (PS2) Review: Donkey Konga (GC)
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Get On Da Mic

Score: 5.9 / 10

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 onethe 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.

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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 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

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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).

- Tolen Dante

(January 20, 2005)