When it comes to karaoke games, you’re probably in one of three musical camps: 1) You just can’t get enough of these sing-along funfests. 2) You’ve played the games, but never really found any that had songs you know. 3) You can’t carry a tune in a bucket and the thought of warbling along with a video game is something akin to water torture.
But even if the last two statements ring more true for you than the first, Disney Sing It: Family Hits might just be on the right side of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to draw you into the family room.
One of the big differences between Family Hits and other sing-along titles—including other Disney Sing It offerings—is its song list. All of the 30 possible musical choices come from well-known Disney and Pixar movies, with newer favorites from The Princess and the Frog, Cars and Toy Story gleefully mixing in with classics from Jungle Book, Mary Poppins and Sleeping Beauty.
“Woody’s Roundup” and “Real Gone” sit right next to “A Whole New World,” “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” and “Cruella De Vil.” And there are even dad-friendly hits such as “The Bare Necessities” that’ll keep the menfolk from having to break out their Sleeping Beauty squeak.
Hakuna Matata
The first step to Disney toonage glory is choosing your difficulty level. I mention this right out of the gate because the game rates you on how well you stay on pitch and gives you points for keeping your voice within a certain metered range.
Now, don’t start sweating.
The truth is, the title’s Easy setting is very forgiving. Even tone-deaf Uncle Harry can shine in this mode. In fact, my 2-year-old granddaughter scored pretty well, even though she couldn’t read a single lyric and was more interested in dancing around and giggling at the colorful crab Sebastian than singing about life “Under the Sea.”
Those giggle-worthy visuals are another part of the fun. No heavily tattooed or skimpily clad avatars to worry about here—unless you count Ariel’s clamshell bikini top. Each song is backed up onscreen with either the actual scene from the movie (presented in HD on the PS3) or a montage of favorite clips. It made me want to go back and watch a handful of the movies again.
After picking your setting, you can choose from several different gaming possibilities. The Sing It mode is pretty straightforward—a single player sings a tune and earn points. The multiplayer Party Play mode, however, lets you sing a pass-the-mic duet, challenges multiple gamers to a no-onscreen-help performance, sets up a team competition or gets the gang together for a sing-off with up to six players.
Practice Makes Frog
Want more? Disney Sing It: Family Hits takes things a step further and even offers up some Vocal Coach lessons and exercises with Princess and the Frog star Anika Noni Rose. The talented songstress takes young and old through their paces and gives out some vocal warm up advice that’ll keep your pipes ringing clear.
So all you need is a plug-in mic (designed for the Wii or PS3) and the desire to give these Disney favs a little voice time. The songs stay E-rated clean—as perfectly coiffed princesses and pull-string cowboys would demand. The worst of the lyrical mix is a warthog’s subtle reference to flatulence (on “Hakuna Matata”) and one mention of wine with dinner (on “Be Our Guest”).
You’re not fooling anybody, you know. I know you’ve been humming “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” ever since Toy Story 3 came out. Now you can take your talent on the road.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
