Pop Idol (GBA)

The idea is simple. You create a singer and take them through the heats and qualifying rounds to the final. If all goes to plan, you get crowned the Pop Idol. If it doesn't, you get to suffer the acid tongues of the three judges, including the infamous Simon Cowell.

Clearly, a video game is going to have troubling assessing your vocal talents and that is a downfall. Instead, Pop Idol substitutes a simple rhythm-style game, not a million miles from classics such as Parappa the Rappa. Basically, symbols correlating to your control pad head towards the middle of the screen and you need to have the relevant button pressed at exactly the right moment. The more you get it right, the better you do. You're also assessed on your outfit, which you choose along with your song before every round.

It's ultimately quite a simple, straightforward title and one that could have been better, could have been worse. It's going to find favour more easily with the casual, less demanding gamer, though, and dedicated fans of the show. --Simon Brew

2 words "BUY IT" !!!!!!!!!!


pop idol love   February 8, 2004
2 out of 4 found this review helpful

i really love this game. it is a GREAT game, but can sometimes get boring if you play on it for too long. you choose what you want your pop idol to look like and choose fashionable clothes for them. good perfomances in competion or endurance mode will allow you to unlock more clothes. at the end of a game you will be given a password so you can use the clothes over and over again.
its quite easy to play,as you only have to press A + B. there is a circle around your pop idol and you have to catch A + Bs which turn into smiles. there is a rating, green smiley meaning best singing,and red (not-so-smiley) smiles meaning not very good singing. im not going to say too much or i will spoil the surprise for you buying it.
i recommend this to anyone that watches or is a fan of pop idol. i would say just-about anyone can enjoy the GBA version of pop idol.
i have only ever won it once, so it is quite challenging.
overall, just BUY IT!!!


Superb - One Of The Best For GBA   December 3, 2003
Gareth Jones
17 out of 19 found this review helpful

Although I only have a very small passing interest in Pop Idol, as soon as I saw the advert for this game I knew I had to have it. Since I bought it, it has been the only game in my Gameboy Advance (and I have over 60). Heavily influenced by Britney's Dance Beat, Codemasters have released a quality product for the many fans of the Pop Idol phenomenon - indeed, it may be the best thing to come out of the show so far! It is obvious that a lot of care has gone into this product but the programmers can be sure that it's well worth it. Although this game is available on other formats, the reason why the GBA version is even more outstanding is because it is the first time that I have genuinely seen the handheld console used to its full potential. There are around 20 pop hits included in the game to make your little character bop about to and you would think you were listening to them on a radio. I had expected polyphonic ringtone style music when I read that the game contained so many songs, but it's so much more than that. The animation of your (fully customisable) character is also great and the judges (with real voices) are as "charming" as they appear on TV.
So what do you have to do? There are three game modes - Competition, Rehearsal and Endurance. The former is the main game - work your way from audition to Pop Idol, tweeking your appearance and songs along the way. Rehearsal is a practice mode (although you will need to unlock songs in competition mode if you want to practice to anything other than "I Will Survive"). Endurance is a fun game for a long journey where you have to literally dance until you drop trying to set the highest score and keep impressing the judges.
Controls are easy - follow the onscreen directions and press A, B or both together to keep your character dancing in time with the music and singing in tune. Beware though - one mistake and your character will be begin to slouch and sing in a style that sounds as if their voice box has been warped by the sun - a bit like Cher's voice on "Believe" really!!
If I had one criticism of this game it's that you can perform really badly and still get through to the next round. You can change the difficulty but it doesn't make much difference, which means that a good player could work through the main part of the game in a couple of hours. That's not too bad though, as it gives you more time for endurance mode!!
I've played both this version and the PS2 version of the game and even though there is little gameplay difference, the fact that Codemasters have managed to squeeze all this onto a tiny GBA cartridge is amazing. I've always had a lot of admiration for Codemasters since the days of Dizzy and Seymour The Slug, and I have even more now.
I honestly think that this is one of the best games around for GBA at the moment. I'm sure others may say "what about Advance Wars, F-Zero or Mario?" but this is up there with all of those. What makes it even better is that this is a quality piece of merchandise from a successful TV show, and it's not often that you get that. So take advantage of such generosity and splash out on this if you want to be engrossed for some time in a not too taxing game. Oh, and if anyone gets this for Christmas - don't start playing until after dinner otherwise you'll never find time to eat! Enjoy...