New SingStar due this May

Although we've not had anything through the usual channels about it, an eagle-eyed reader alerts us today to a release on Sony's European press centre concerning SingStar Pop - a new title in the karaoke series due out on PS2 in May. Screenshots here.

According to Sony UK, the reason we haven't heard about it yet is that it hasn't been confirmed for the UK and will have a different name when it appears here.

SingStar Pop promises "a fresh new look and a broad contemporary song selection", which basically means another 30 songs from artists including recurring screamer Avril "My Licensing Rates Must Be Pretty Reasonable" Lavigne, Jamelia, Keane, Robbie Williams and the Black Eyed Peas.

It also features a new Rap Scoring mode, details of which are scant but about which we know that you can expect to "gain extra points as you battle against your crew to see who is the master of the mic, with the ultimate MC showdown". Unfortunately the game immediately loses points as a result for its non-ironic use of the word "crew".

None the less, a rap battle mode is a nice idea - something we've mentioned before on these pages - while the addition of Medley mode, which strings together short pieces of music "challenging would-be pop stars to think fast and score high before the tune changes" should be interesting.

It's also good to hear that Pass the Mic and Duets are returning, and that we can look forward to some new voice filters in Playback Mode. Which is good to hear after we whinged about it when we looked at SingStar Party. Hopefully the playback timing won't be a fraction off this time either.

According to the Sony release, SingStar Pop will come once again with two microphones that plug in via USB adapter, which is also handy since our red one broke ages ago. If it's anything like previous games, however, the key selling point will be entirely subjective - just how well you take to the songs. And on that note we hope it's slightly more SingStar than SingStar Party.