Karaoke Revolution
A Rhythm Game co-developed by Konami, Blitz Games, and Harmonix, where players must sing along to popular songs while being judged on if they're singing on the right pitch or not, as indicated by a piano roll and pitch bars accompanying the scrolling lyrics.
The original version of the game was released in November 2003 on the PlayStation 2, followed by several Mission Pack Sequels (labelled as "volumes") that added features such as ports to other consoles (Xbox on Volume 2, Game Cube on Party), duets (Volume 3), and dance pad support (Party). There were even versions under the guise of American Idol home games.
The popularity of the series would begin to tamper off once Harmonix released Guitar Hero, it too morphed into a phenomenon, but this time it was one much greater than what Karaoke Revolution achieved. Coinciding with Activision's acquisition of the franchise, Harmonix would throw together what it developed for both Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution (along with some other new mechanics) to create a certain other music game.
Konami would reboot the series sans Harmonix in 2009 with a new release for the Xbox 360, Play Station 3, and Wii simply titled "Karaoke Revolution", now featuring only master tracks, better multiplayer, and other new features. However, they didn't take the logical route of adding guitar and drum support to the game either, since they somehow wanted to keep vocals out of what they produced for that niche instead!
Games in this series include:
- Karaoke Revolution
- Karaoke Revolution Volume 2
- Karaoke Revolution Volume 3
- Karaoke Revolution Party
- CMT Presents: Karaoke Revolution Country
- Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol
- Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore
- Karaoke Revolution (2009)
- Karaoke Revolution Glee
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Well, you gotta earn something to put on your virtual you.
- Cover Version: Primarily in the earlier games, however there's no need to complain about the singer on said covers since you are gonna be the one singing it anyway. Plus they kinda add to the authenticity of the American Idol versions since they do use a live cover band on that show by default. The 2009 release would only use master tracks to be more in line with its competitors.
- Crowning Music of Awesome: The first game had "The Power of Love", yes, that song, before Harmonix revisited it for Rock Band 3. Volume 2 featured among other things, The Darkness's "I Believe in A Thing Called Love". Get your falsetto ready.
- The opening themes from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Silent Hill 4 are playable tracks on Volume 3 for added greatness.
- Downloadable Content: The Xbox/Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 versions would receive this.
- Dueling Games: Mainly with Sing Star and Lips.
- Ear Worm: Given the point of the game, these will come up, a lot.
- Licensed Game: We've had American Idol and Glee versions already. Both are Fox programs, and both make perfect sense for this kind of game.
- Recurring Extra: "Science Genius Girl" by Freezepop appeared on Volume 1. Since the band contains some of their staff members, Freezepop music has a tendency to come up in Harmonix games frequently.
- Spiritual Successor: Both Rock Band and Guitar Hero's implementation of vocals stemmed from Karaoke Revolution's gameplay mechanics.