The fact of the matter is, mind, that however you have sampled its curious delights, karaoke is a lot of fun in the right hands. Whether taken seriously by participants who dream of rags-to-riches pop stardom from the bosom of their local, or enjoyed with tongue firmly in cheek after a skinful of drink, there will always be a market for this most embarrassing of Japanese inventions, both in the home and commercially. Home karaoke machines have been available for a number of years, and in terms of videogames, there have been numerous singing titles, from early, primitive efforts on the Nintendo Famicom, right up to Konami’s commendable Karaoke Revolution on the PS2 and Xbox. In between, there was the expensively obscure LaserActive and the Sega Saturn doubling up as a karaoke machine, albeit one requiring a fair spend on additional peripherals to get it running to a decent standard. To date, inferior technology, production values and an overall lack of gloss have scuppered many such releases.

Thank heavens, then, for SCEE/London Studio, who in 2004 knocked together the BAFTA Games Award-winning SingStar for the PS2. A classy, well-produced refinement of the karaoke genre, it was designed to appeal to the public on a number of levels. The technology and sleek design (reassuringly heavy USB microphones, EyeToy compatibility) made the party game-loving post-pub crowd sit up and take notice. The pastel-shaded, pop art-esque cover straddled both the Tween and wannabee fashinionista markets, whilst the song selection of the initial game had a decent balance of classic standards and bang-up-to-date pop hits. And Daniel Bedingfield.

Perhaps most importantly, the songs included were your actual official legitimate versions, with the original videos playing along in the background. This immediately made it a more attractive proposition than any other contender, regardless of gameplay quality or anything else.

A number of updates have been released, concentrating on the staple karaoke diet of straight-up pop (SingStar Party, SingStar, er, Pop), and perhaps best of all the nostalgic, excellent 80s instalment, which gives one the opportunity to cruelly subject your macho, deep-voiced mate to a bollock-tightening medley of “Kayleigh”, “We Built This City”, and “I Want To Know What Love Is”, should you so desire. Since it was announced, there had been a great deal of excitement and furore surrounding SingStar Rocks. With an advert showing two identikit alpha males belting out “Song 2” on the roof of a building, finally the under-40 male demographic were going to get their chance to become a sweaty rawk god in the comfort of their own homes. Or were they?

Unfortunately, in terms of the song selection, SingStar Rocks is less “Hell's Bells” and more “For Those About To Generic Indie Rock, We Salute You”. Sure, there are some inspired choices, such as “Smoke On The Water”, “Paint It Black”, and for the ladies, Hole’s terrific Fleetwood Smack grunge-pop “Celebrity Skin”. But across the disc is a distinct lack of actual Satan-worshipping, throat-shredding fare. Stalwarts such as AC/DC and Metallica are omitted in favour of fey indie jangle-a-thons from Bloc Party, Keane and Coldplay. The fairer sex are short changed in the extreme; the barrel being well and truly scraped as developers decide to represent the majesty of rock with the sassy pop of Gwen Stefani and the brain-numbing, ubiquitous KT Tunstall.

The front end and menus are impeccably designed. SingStar has always looked and felt incredibly swish and it is easy to negotiate your way through the options. The microphones are sturdy, feel nice to hold and are reasonably audible, although we would recommend running your PS2 through a decent sound system or suchlike, having given your neighbours plenty of advance warning. Gameplay-wise, SingStar Rocks does not deviate from the system laid down back in 2004. A difficulty level is selected, and players sing along to the on-screen videos in order to score points based upon how accurately they can emulate the vocal of the original track. The scoring system and margin for error becomes more unforgiving depending on the difficulty level, but at the same time killjoys will note that the voice recognition is designed to pick up the vocal melody and perfect results can be achieved by humming the tune into the mic. This means that there is no room for freestyling or improvisation, and adding all kinds of vocal acrobatics may sound nice but will ultimately cost you points when it comes to the crunch. Sadly there was also a technical problem during manufacturing with some versions of the game, with reports of the video footage freezing, whilst the music continues.

Unless you can afford to have your own backing band or cough up for a proper karaoke machine and CD-G discs, SingStar Rocks represents the best you can do if you like (mainstream) rock music and want to sing along to it, it is that simple. Uninspiring as some of the track selections are, it remains equally as enjoyable as any of the other instalments in the series. SingStar begs to be enjoyed with a bunch of mates, an apocalyptic amount of alcohol and a buzzing, party atmosphere. That is where the idea of warbling into a games console makes perfect sense, and for a while you can actually imagine that you are singing in the pub, taking your turn at nuts-out rock glory after some corned-beef-legged harridan has just murdered “I Will Always Love You”. As a single-player experience, the title is less of a draw, unless you fancy a solo, wistful “Wind Of Change” after everyone else has gone to bed. Recalling the classic whistling coda of the Scorpions' Cold War-themed power ballad, there can’t be many of us who haven’t ever dreamed of that.