ic-games Review - Pop Life - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Pop Life - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Pop Life

Information
Reviewer: Nick
Developer: Monte Cristo
Publisher: Mindscape
Reviewed: PC
Genre: Action Adventure
UK Release: 17th Feb 2005
Article Date: 17th Apr 2005
Difficulty: Easy
Retail Price: £24.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 57%

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Pros

Decent Tutorial

Cons

Dull

Bugged

Screenshots

2 of 5

Are you a fan of Pop Idol or Pop Stars or even American Idol? Do you enjoy playing The Sims? If so then you're probably going to love this game because it's a cross between the two. Released by Monte Cristo Multimedia for the PC, Pop Life is certainly the closest we’ll ever get to living the high life.

The idea is to guide the career of your popstar winner through a series of concerts throughout the world. You prepare in your own self-built home and also do as much as you can to please your fans. You start off by creating your pop star: choosing whether you want male or female, the facial features, skin colour, body shape, their name and even which clothes you want them to wear. Once you have created your pop star, you can't change anything again other than their clothing.

Your star's career consists of a series of performances which you have to prepare for in order to progress through the game. You even program your own dance steps, choreography and special effects. Each concert has its own objectives to be fulfilled first in order to perform their stage show. You will have to contact and interact with your performer, dancers, teachers or professional show biz contacts to guide and help your star. You will need to maintain a high popularity, learn new songs, dance steps or special effects to practice or be given lessons by your teachers. Some contacts ask you to meet certain demands first. You can keep an eye on your objectives and other stats by the game icons at the side of the action window.

The look of your star can be glam, street, teen, zen or rock. The look is important throughout the game. Infact you start out by actually designing/building your own house or at least a room to begin with. You choose its size and location and then the colour of the wallpaper and carpet, how many windows you want and where to place them, a door of course if you want to come and go and other things to keep your pop star and the other characters happy, such as plants, toys, chairs and so on. You'll also need to purchase aids to assist you with your singing and dancing, keeping in touch with your fans and your contacts, keeping up with world news and current affairs and other cultures that matter, such as Hong Kong for example. Matching your furniture will be more effective if you choose the same style, or 'look', as that of your pop star. You can later change the style of your rooms to match your look to increase the atmosphere.

When the pop star is at home you’ll need to balance your character's fun and health, for example how tired they might be or whether they are happy or sad. This is usually put right with having the correct furniture or gadgets in your house (and using them). Sadly this is where pop life falls down, it’s just too easy to power-up. For example health can be increased just by telling the star to take painkillers repeatedly (without any side effects it seems. You must also develop relationships with people around you and keep them happy and healthy too. Like your pop star they can get angry or feel guilty or even overjoyed and these feelings have to be balanced or tipped one way or the other by your interaction with them in order to get them to co-operate or help you sometimes.

Once you have trained your pop star to sing, dance and have polished their stage presence to a more professional level (and have completed the level's objectives), you finally get to appear in you’re own concert. You program this yourself. Because different dance moves and effects are rewarded throughout the game the quality of the concert changes the amount you learn and earn. Once you have set it up the way you want, you can then test your act on your mentor and he or she will give you a report on how well, or otherwise, you have done. If you're happy with the performance, you can then do it for real and see how you went down with the crowd, how much money you made and so on. Your concert is backed by music from 8 different performers, including Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Kym Marsh.

A nice feature is that you're not thrown in at the deep end and left to flounder wondering what you have to do. There is a tutorial which takes you through each step of designing the room; contacting you’re singing and dancing teachers, getting lessons and so on. Once the tutor feels that you have learned sufficiently, they will then keep quiet and let you get on with it.

In the end Pop Life did get a little dull, and as the game progressed the little bugs annoyed more and more. However, if you have always dreamed of living the high life but do not have the voice (do any of them? -Ed) then at least Pop Life allows you to live that dream for now on your PC.

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