Arriving too late to cash in on grannies buying %26lsquo;that music game%26rsquo; for Christmas, Music MonStars is a rhythm-actioner where you play guitar, keyboards and drums. There%26rsquo;s a mildly spooky theme (with cartoony ghosts, vamp🤡ires and what looks like a gimp), but what%26rsquo;s really frightening is the appalling quality of the tunes. Eighteen %26lsquo;tophits%26rsquo; have been put through a꧟ Craptone%26trade; synthesiser and then overlaid with Ouendan-ish markers, which are serviceable enough but can blur into a confusing mess on harder settings.

There%26rsquo;s an option to record your own multi-track compositions using the three🎉 instruments, but we found their artificial parping so painful it was💞 hard to be tuneful. The box also boasts of a %26lsquo;Karaoke mode%26rsquo; %26ndash; which means you can read the lyrics on the top screen. Singing into the mic has no effect, apart from making you look a berk.

Mar 11, 2009