Opera Slinger Reviewed by: DeathDude Positive Points: Unique idea Interesting song selection Singing in a game Negative Points: May be tough for some Genre: Simulation Size: 138 120 KB Requirements: 1.8 GHz Processor (Pentium(r) or AMD equivalent) Microsoft Windows(r) XP 1 GB RAM DirectX(r) 8.0 compatible 128 MB Video Card (Nvidia Geforce(r) 6600 or higher / ATI equivalent) DirectSound(r) compatible sound card with OGG support Windows(r) compatible keyboard and mouse Windows(r) compatible microphone and/or headset with microphone (recommended to use USB Headset) 155 MB Hard Disk for install Analog Microphone Monitor capable of at least 1024x768 resolution Questionable Content: None Editor rating: 4.7 Homepage: http://operaslinger.com/START.html Download location: http://operaslinger.com/play_now.html First thing, that must be mentioned in this game before you read further. You must have a microphone or a USB Headset to play this game! If you do not have a microphone, then you will not be able to play this game. If you do happen to have a microphone, you are in for a different gaming experience. You may have seen some of the so-called karaoke topics on the last next generation consoles, mostly singing top 40 material. Only Opera Slinger though will allow you to sing operatically! Now even though I was the singer of a metal band back in the day, I still wish I had the operatic range like some of my favourite singers, Bruce Dickinson, Warrel Dane, and Roy Khan and so on, I mean singing Opera is no easy challenge right? Well, you do not have to be a superstar singer in order to play Opera Slinger, and heck if you just like to sing you can do that in this game, there are five songs to sing and each one has its own set of unique lyrics, and I mean that literally. Opera Slinger is such a unique and just different sort of game that you do not see often in the freeware community, but that is what makes it such an enjoyable experience for singers and non-singers alike. The story of Opera Slinger goes like this. You are Forte, Opera Singer Extraordinaire, who is preparing for a show for his loyal fans at his Opera House, when disaster strikes, as the case tends to happen. Aria, the self-professed Opera Queen has destroyed most of the opera house and is hoping to steal away all of Fortes fans, so that she will be seen as the best Opera Singer, not Forte. Forte is not too pleased with what he sees, challenges Aria to a final musical sing off between them, and the audience will decide, who the better Opera Singer is. However, Opera Slinger is not all about just singing, there is some platform action involved. You must guide Forte across the crumbling ruins of the opera hall, to reach different spotlights before Aria reaches them. If you reach a spotlight before Aria does, you will get the chance to sing parts of the song before she can, and thus winning you more fan favor. There is still the opportunity to sing, in case you cannot reach a spotlight before Aria does, but you will have to sing loud and you will not get as much favor from the crowd, because they cannot see you. There are five different spot light locations and five songs to sing before one of you will be crowned the true Opera champion. You control Forte with the W, A, S, D buttons, and use the mouse button to look around; the space bar is your jump key. There are also three difficulty levels to choose from before you start to help you out in case you wish for a challenge or have not much singing experience at all. Once you do enter a spotlight, you will be prompted with which song will be performed, during which you will also sing. The lyrics will go scrolling across the screen and you must do your best to sing the lyrics, all the while watching your pitch and volume of your voice, which will be graded by the crowd. If you sing well, you will receive more favor from the crowd, if you do not, the crowd favor will go to Aria. Little tips will also pop across the screen in case you are having trouble, such as sing lower or sing higher or simply sing louder. Remember it is important to sing loud, so that the crowd can hear you. The idea of having a singing game on the PC may seem a bit sketchy to think about, but Opera Slinger does a superb job with the game. For anyone who likes to sing, it is a fun experience as you try and or do your best opera performance while singing the different songs. It may not be the easiest experience for all gamers, because the game relies heavily on pitch and volume and it will take a few tries before gamers get used to, the different ranges they will have to sing. Nevertheless, once you do get the hang of the game, you can see that a lot of effort went into the game and it excels quite well. In addition, there is a different scoring option for males and females when you start up the game, to make things more fair, which was nice to see. Graphically, the game looks quite nice. If you have a high-end system, you will definitely enjoy some of the graphical effects and overall the environment of the opera hall looks good. That is also key to enjoying this game, you need a somewhat beefy system in order for the game to run smoothly, make sure to close any extra programs as well to get the most performance out of your system. In regards to the sound and music of the game, it sounds amazing. What is great is that the game is entirely voiced, both Forte and Aria will speak during the opening cinematic, and during the singing battles that occur, along with taunts and other asides during the race to the next spotlight. The voices sound really good too, from both Forte and Aria. Forte sounds like a confident and almost has that quality about him that you will picture him saying dude or radical, pretty much he can be best summed up as a rock star in the opera, along those lines. Aria on the other hand is the typical opera soprano, confident that she is the star and just generally wants to be loved or else. Both voices sound quite professional and add to the high quality of the game. The instrumental tunes that are playing sound great as you are singing, just loud enough for you to hear, but not loud enough to distract you from singing your parts either. From the singing, to the platform action that the game offers, all around Opera Slinger is a fun and enjoyable game for singers and non singers alike and the fact that it is a freeware release makes it even better. If your looking for a much different sort of game to challenge your gaming skills, try out Opera Slinger and see how your singing skills rack up, now go forth and sing!