Features:Sing your favorite tunes while Karaoke Revolution judges you. Perform your way to the ultimate concert venue in Showtime Mode. Choose from a list of hits from the 70's, 80's, 90's and today! Utilizes the Sony USB headset microphone for PlayStation 2. For 1 to 8 players.

Description:Turn your PlayStation 2 into a high-end, interactive karaoke machine with 'Karaoke Revolution', the latest in Konami's award-winning line of music video games. Featuring an impressive list of tunes from current hits to yesterday's classics, 'Karaoke Revolution' will give gamers of all types something to sing about.

Verdict: Although I'm not the greatest, I've been singing my entire life - on my own and in organized groups in school and such. Since leaving school, there's been little opportunity for me to sing, other than in my car and in the shower at least! So I was very excited to learn about this game, and picked it out of a pile off of my Editor's desk the moment it entered the office! (Hey, it's the quick or the dead round these parts sometimes!) Anyway, the first thing I learned is that many of the songs you thought you knew - you don't. The game's versions of the songs, at least the ones I've been through thus far, seem to be very accurate and close to their original verisons. I expected to hear more karaoke-style versions, but was pleasantly surprised with their "real" sound.

I think the graphics are fairly good, especially considering they matter the least anyway. The singers, particularly the girls, move realistically, and their movements seem to echo the tone of the music for the most part. I also like the system of adjusting volumes. In the game, you can press the square, circle, triangle, and x buttons while you are performing to adjust the music volume (background music through your speakers), the microphone volume (your own voice through the speakers), vocals volume (singer's voice through the speakers), and the headset volume (your own voice through the headset). In this way you can really fine-tune what you're hearing, and make a great-sounding performance.

I personally have not had too much of a problem with the headset microphone - as this seems to be a general topic of discussion between us gamers! These types of microphones are designed to be placed very close to (practically in!) your mouth. When I have the microphone properly positioned, I never get poor registration in the game. I have also tried this mic on my home computer, and found it works better than any other microphone I've ever tried, in the last 10 years!

Maggie Williams

To win a brand new copy of this exciting game, just tell me in which prior Konami game (Sept. '02) does the character Bill Rizer appear? Just send us an e:mail here with your answer and the subject title 'KARAOKE REVOLUTION' to: