The basic gist of the Lips gameplay hasn't really changed. Sure, the menus have been prettified, but they still stutter a bit with slowdown and it still takes ages to get the game loaded up and going. I feel like the videos look better this time around, but that might just be me. There's a little bit more customization this time around, so you can actually choose what color you want the bars to fill in with as you're singing correctly. But for whatever reason, you still can't tell it to turn the volume of your own voice down permanently like in other music games. You still have to manually turn it down every time you play. Weak.

The thing about Number One Hits is that it's less of a sequel and more of an expansion pack. Which is why it's a little annoying that it forces you to buy a microphone. What am I supposed to do with a third microphone in a game that only takes two? But I bitched about that already. You can still start with this game, but if you have a Lips save, it will carry over your medals and ranking from the original. Annoyingly, though, it doesn't carry over your playlists. There are also only a few Achievements in this game, not the full 1000 points. On the plus side, there are unlockable Avatar clothes for meeting specific goals.

While singing, you can't shake the mic to boost your star power meter anymore. It just fills up as you sing correctly. But what I do like is that they've now added in some rhythm actions to some of the songs. Sometimes you'll be asked to shake the mic to shake the tambourine or clap on the beat, which easily earns you the party medal. Other times, you'll be asked to mimic the movement of your Avatar doing stuff like strumming an air guitar or dancing. This easily gets you the performance medal.

The major tweak to the gameplay is that now you earn combos for every note you sing correctly in succession. On easier songs, you can get upwards of 100x going, but miss just one tiny little word, and you start over at one. This can get frustrating, but it also adds a little bit of challenge that the first Lips was missing.

Although I still wish that Lips would show your high score on the screen so you know instantly whether or not you beat it, it does something similar. Instead of pitting you against your own personal best, the game pits you against the entire community. As you sing, it rates you on the leaderboard. So at a certain point, when you've scored high enough to rank, it lets you know. And as you continue singing awesomely, the number will count down, showing how high in the rankings you're going. This is the kind of incentive to keep playing that the first game was lacking.

I don't have all of the DLC (because I'm not a millionaire, or a fan of all that music), but what DLC I do have is still available through Number One Hits. Songs with a red disc icon indicate that you have to swap discs to play them. This wouldn't be so bad in theory, but in practice, it's a pain in the ass. You swap to the original Lips disc, sing the song, but then you have to swap back in Number One Hits just to get your score. I'd thought that perhaps you could sing a few songs from Lips before switching back, but you have to swap back and forth for each song you sing. Which basically means I'm not going to be singing much from the original Lips anymore...

It may sound like I'm bitching a lot, but Lips: Number One Hits is still a lot of fun. It may not be the leap forward I was hoping for in gameplay, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. There are 40 songs included on the disc, and there's a code inside that will get you five more to download for free. If you loved the first game, this is just as much fun, and a little bit more of a game. But if you're not into karaoke, this probably isn't going to change your mind.

8 out of 10