One of the biggest surprise hits ever on the PlayStation 2 has been the EyeToy. An ingenious marriage of a web-cam and a series of little party games, it's made Sony some serious cash and sent it hunting down fresh ways to get people interacting with their consoles.

That, combined with factors such as the dance-mat craze, is pretty much how we've arrived at SingStar. The idea here is that you're tested on your singing abilities, and your progress throughout the game is determined by whether you hit the right notes or not.

It comes in a hefty package, which features not only the game, but two surprisingly chunky microphones that fit into one of the USB ports on the front of the console. Then it's a case of loading up the game and getting ready to sing. And the game itself features several modes to test your abilities.

For a solitary player, the career path is probably the best bet. Here you take the role of an up-and-coming singer, and by turning up at clubs and singing well, you'll gradually build up 'buzz'. Get enough buzz and you'll unlock more songs, get invited to more clubs and start on the path to getting a recording deal. And you control things via an apartment where you can, er, choose your ringtone if you like. We didn't.

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As progress is judged by your singing ability, it's interesting how the game assesses it. Basically, as your song of choice kicks in - there are short and full versions of each available, and most come backed with the official video (or, if you have an EyeToy, images of you singing) - it's shown on screen, karaoke-style, with the lyrics you need to be belting out.

Also, there's a series of lines that determine the pitch you need to be singing at, and it's this that the game effectively judges you on. What it's looking for is for you to be roughly singing the right note for roughly the right amount of time, and if you do that, your score goes up. Bonuses are awarded for really good performance.

This score, in some cases, has to exceed the target you've been given before you can move on. However, it's easily cheated. The game has no way of determining if you're singing the right words, so frankly you can just hum at the thing if you want. It's also best to forget about injecting any element of style, as all the game needs you to do is hit the right note when it wants you to.

These points aside, though, there's little doubt that SingStar is very good fun, with the novelty value alone worth an evening or two. Where it hits paydirt, though, is in multi-player mode, and if you're looking for a good party game, then SingStar is pretty much essential.

For example, there are opportunities to sing duets, various little party games such as 'pass the mic', and then our favourite, the battle mode, where two people sing at the same time and go head-to-head for the highest score. With the right levels of social lubrication, SingStar is the best thing to happen to multi-player gaming all year, with the option to replay your performance inducing just the right amounts of cringe.

Still, there's room here for future improvement. We'd like more songs, for starters. While the 30 included are fundamentally fine (taking in Elvis and Petula Clarke through to Sugababes and, er, Westlife), they're only going to last you so long. We could cynically conclude, though, that there's going to be a very healthy market for add-on discs here. We'd also like a better single-player mode, which currently is very simple and quite short lived.

All things considered, though, SingStar is a hoot. If you're going to play it alone, it's perhaps a questionable investment, but if you've got friends coming round to play, it's damn near essential.

This is something different, and it works well. SingStar is ultimately a passable single-player game, but so far it's the best multiplayer title of the year. By a long way.