If you check out one of the reviews aggregate sites like to see how games are scored before you rush out and pick up a copy (and I certainly hope you do unless we say otherwise), you'll probably see a lot of reviews for KRPAI starting the same way: with the forehead-slapping realization that this was a dream match-up of licenses and existing franchises. It doesn't usually happen that way; successful franchises keep to their corner and licensed games get pumped out of that crap factory where all bad games go to die and reincarnate themselves as the next hop-n-bop platformer.
KRPAI -- or as we like to scream it randomly around the office before tourneys break out kuuurrrrpaiiii!
-- is different. The injection of the American Idol license, while still not a right and proper integration of the concepts, actually betters the game design that was starting to get a little stale. With the entrance of Simon and Randy comes the exodus of longtime series developer Harmonix Music Systems, who are currently bathing in piles of cash after being bought by MTV Games.
In their stead, UK-based Blitz Games (who actually worked on the AI license for Codemasters) have stepped in to handle programming duties.
If one were to take a passing glance at the games running side by side, it's entirely possible that you wouldn't be able to tell them apart save for all the American Idol logos everywhere, and that's because Harmonix and Konami built for themselves a simple mechanic and clean interface for it. Though I have no idea how much of the original assets were shared (the venues from are back, including the ones that reference Harmonix), it's not difficult to replicate a series of lines with a little arrow that bobs up and down according to the pitch you're blasting into the mic, and so the core gameplay remains unchanged.
What has changed is the window dressing. The AI influence is everywhere, from menus to unlockable videos to music to little video transitions between songs. It's also taken over the main single-player mode, giving you an actual reason beyond just unlocking songs to want to play through the 40 or so tracks thrown into the game this time around.
See, you are the next American Idol -- provided you want to be and you can belt out tunes to the satisfaction of Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and...
uh, the unimonikered Laura (Paula opted out, and was replaced by a clone, apparently). In contests ranging from eight to 18 songs, you'll square off against randomly generated characters (that you don't see perform), at at the end of each, the audience will vote for you, with votes becoming tougher to come by as the performance goes on.
The judges are easily the biggest change to the game, as they actually will grade the entire performance and then list certain things you need to work on or did well.
It's all fairly nebulous ( your pitch was off, you started strong but buckled near the end, etc.), but it's more informative than a simple score. A branching dialogue system is obviously being used, leading to more than a few repeated comments, but it does hold up impressively well and thanks to Simon's trademark bite, you'll actually have a reason to retry beyond just nailing diamond records.
The judges are there mainly to act as they do in real life; Randy will call your pitch, Laura is the cheerleader and Simon just likes to rip on people, making complements feel genuinely deserved. It's a little weird to get a sense of satisfaction and importance from a bunch of canned pre-recorded comments, but hey, motivation's motivation. What's more, in long-term contests, the AI will reference past performances and remember if you repeat a song and do better or worse.
In fact, either because of the song selection, Blitz' grading or just the fact that I'm sucking more often these days, the scoring actually felt quite a bit harder. Granted, I didn't know 80% of the songs this time around, but I could usually fudge it. In fact, just humming along will get you through most songs, with is both a boon to folks like me that knew the chorus but not the verses, but after playing a ton of , I got used to having to work for my score because the game actually grades you on timing too.
With KR, it's always been acceptable to just constantly hum until you can get the arrow buried in the middle of the line.
The mini-games section has also been given tweaked, turning into the KR Challenge, a set of mini-game like events for two to eight players. They're challenging -- particularly if you're less familiar with the songs than others, and offer some nice little tweaks for bumping out players that fail or setting streaks for others, but it's certainly no Yo, Dude, Rock.
One- and Two-Mic Party Modes are still here too, allowing for things like True Medleys (actual harmonies instead of singing the same thing) or Pass the Mic if you've only got one.
The character creation options have been bulked up just a bit, and of course you still have the option to use an EyeToy to map your face to a character's body, but it'll take a bit of playing to unlock some of the more insane costume choices. What's available from the start covers most sexes and races nicely, and you can always tweak things to mix and match as you see fit.
One night of partying will likely yield a couple dozen new outfits to play around with if that's your thing.
The transition from Harmonix to Blitz at the helm isn't an entirely seamless one, however; some of the models and textures -- particularly on Laura -- don't have the same kind of pop and smoothness as the created characters. Moreover, the crowd seems painfully thin and lifeless, and the animations for anyone not on stage are horribly chunky and lack transitions.
Watching the judges stiffly move from one pre-canned animation to the next is fine if you're singing, but during judging it was far more glaring. Whether a byproduct of having to replicate the actual venues or just the developers' talent at sculpting things, the AI venues are noticeably worse than the stuff that was created in earlier games.
Aurally, though, the game is just as strong thanks to some fantastic covers from Fremont, CA-based WaveGroup (who worked with Harmonix on the previous KR games and later the games).
They aren't all perfect, but then covers rarely are, and as the little bonus video explains, they're working from scratch rather than the multi-track master recordings from studios, so the fact that they're able to nail the music perfectly says something. So effects and tunes are solid enough, but when folks have to speak, it's a bit more of an issue.
Part of it is just that some of the branching comments are a little loose in how their strung together.
There aren't any abrupt pauses or changes in tone (though there are some minor ones in the latter instance), but you do definitely get the sense that it's pieces played from a pool of responses, and you'll hear plenty of the same comment -- even when your performance isn't quite the same -- by the end of the first time you've played through an American Idol career. Ryan Seacrest's comments are far, far worse, and clearly pulled right from broadcasts -- to the point where you can hear music in the background.
It should be noted that the unlockable videos ranging from tryouts to behind-the-scenes clips to actual performance medleys are all visually quite clean, but some suffer from sync issues, and the transitions during the AI performances stutter at the end.
Minor bitching, I know, but I like my lip movements and voices to be in line and stutter video is just plain ugly. At least the clips from the show either make you feel better or show you exactly why you shouldn't try out for the real-life competition based on how damn well the performers sing.
Though it may not feel like the American Idol license was ham-fisted into the existing gameplay, the two aren't married so perfectly yet that they feel like they've always been there.
With a little more work on the judges, from modeling to animation to textures, and just a little more work to make it seem like you're actually playing to a crowd in faithfully replicated venues from the show, this could be a killer app. Given that just injecting commentary from the judges helped lift the series out of the slump it started to fall in is something, but it's going to take another push altogether to really make it fresh again.
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