X. O-X. Square-Triangle-XX. Long square. American Idol for PS2

You've got to be kidding me. They couldn't have done a better job with this game? I mean, it had so much going for it - the provenance of the show, lots of pop songs to choose from, and thousands of preteen fans. They could have made this thing into a karaoke-lover's dream.

Instead, they threw together about three dozen songs that gamers push buttons to in a Simon Says kind of way with fake, annoying voices and characters that are the furthest thing you can get from lifelike.

The Basics
This game for Playstation 2 includes Party, Karaoke and Dance Mat modes (if you have a dance pad), and is geared towards kids of about 7 and up. Versions are also available for the PC and the Gameboy Advance.

It's rated E for Everyone by the ESRB, allows gameplay for 1-4 players and works best with a 150 KB memory card. It was released by Codemasters in 2003, at the height of the American Idol craze.

What they said upon release: "Under the license from FremantleMedia and 19 Entertainment, joint owners of the blockbuster reality entertainment format as seen on FOX, Codemasters will launch an American Idol video game this fall for the PlayStation2 computer entertainment system and PC.

American Idol will be a music-based rhythm-action game, allowing players to create, style, train a character and compete as a singer. Each virtual contestant will then choose from more than 40 “top-ten” music tracks to perform for the judges. To ensure the American Idol game experience is truly authentic, Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul will be featured as computer generated characters, complete with their colorful commentary."

There is some kind of cheap thrill we got from playing this poorly constructed game. A handful of the songs are pretty good, but only in some of the voice options. They are not completely accurate about the whole "each contestent will choose from more than 40 top-ten music tracks" thing, because at each level you only have between 5 and 10 songs to choose from and pickins get pretty slim in the mid-levels. The "truly authentic" thing is an out-and-out lie. The characters are so fake and so slow and so repetitive, it's literally frustrating to sit through their interactions and gestures.

Storyline, Characters and Objectives
There really is no story line or objective other than you are a contestant on American Idol competing from auditions to the title of American Idol.

At the outset of the game, you choose your base character from a selection of characters with varying skin types and vocal ranges. You can give a Fantasia-like deep voice to a fair-skinned character and vice versa. There are also male characters of various skin types and facial structures.

Once you select your character and vocal tone, it's time to dress your character by selecting outfit pieces, hairstyles and accessories from your wardrobe. I hated the fact that you can't really see how the smaller accessories (particularly the hair accessories and colors) look on your character until you walk out on the stage. Though you have a full-length mirror in front of you and can change your perspective a little bit, many of the items remain invisible until you walk out and see that you've stupidly selected a bright blue barrette with a burnt sienna outfit. Or that your boots are a completely different shade of brown.

After you select your costume choice, you go on stage and select your song. You "sing" by pressing the button on your PS2 controller that corresponds to the steady stream of symbols flying from all directions on the bottom of the screen. This means that you don't watch yourself sing, but can hear that you've messed up your timing when notes are off key. In some cases with really poor timing, your notes can be horribly off key.

Intermittently throughout songs originally sung by Britney Spears, InSynch and Madonna, you can also hit flashing stars that boost your overall applause and likability rating. After the little eye-hand-coordination exercise is over, you receive comments by Paula, Simon and Randy that you can click out of but only after excruciatingly long pauses where all you can do is watch Paula's fake foot tap.

You are rated on your timing, but also on your costume selection. There seems to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to the costume ratings. We've been wild, conservative, matching, punky, poppy and scantily-clad. It just doesn't matter. Sometimes they like you. Sometimes they don't.

Players can compete against each other with varying degrees of difficulty and "unlock" new costumes and songs that can be saved for future games. The most realistic parts are those with Ryan Seacrest in the crowd or at the show talking about the increased competition, etc. That's the only part that looks real. The rest is hooey.

There's little payoff to winning the game (which takes about an hour at the appropriate level of difficulty). You just get to see your name as number one, watch your song again with your actual performance and let the credits roll by.

Social and Educational Value
I can see the value in this game for kids around age 8 or 9. It does test your eye-hand-coordination and in multi-player mode, the person not playing can just sit back and watch the singing and/or sing along.

Unfortunately, the songs are too few and too crappy to really keep kids engaged and some of them contain borderline material dealing with sex. "Fast Love" comes to mind.

I do like the fact that characters are somewhat diverse, but not as diverse or realistic as they could be. The voices and characters are so fake and repetitive and, in many cases, your character's responses to the judges don't make any sense. This is probably not a fantastic thing for developing minds.

Party and Karaoke modes are boring. It's just a jukebox feature that you can play or practice on in your room. We do not own a dance pad, so maybe someone can comment on whether or not the Dance Mat mode is at all entertaining or engaging.

Overall
I'm really surprised that they couldn't have done a better job with this game. The pauses, repetition, fake characters, thin storyline, lack of creativity and variety bring its rating down to 2 stars. The only redeeming quality about the game is the few cheap thrills it offers and its novelty.

For More Information
Tours, screenshots, costume downloads, support and chat can be found on the official website at http://www.codemasters.com/americanidol/homepage.php.

©2005 Meagan Downey