I learned a long time ago that I have a face made for radio. Back in college, I studied being both behind and in-front of the camera and realized my place was “in the rear with the gear”. So, being there I got to know the gear pretty well – from taped together scripts rolling through a prompter which was little more than a rigged overhead projector to state-of-the-art, programmed HD equipment. When I heard a PC game had come along that had green screen clipping capabilities I got really excited. Commercial keying gear costs a fortune and is one of the harder expenses a start up television station has to invest in so if we could get the keying to clip well on our PCs then home workshops could be realistic at a fraction of the cost. Yoostar was the name of the game and it claimed to make people actually look like they were in the movie. Before I had an opportunity to pick it up however I heard there were major software and keying issues so I let is slide by thinking maybe I would try somewhere down the line.
Well down the line came in the form of Yoostar 2: In The Movies and so once again I told myself I would pick it up eventually – this time waiting on the money to pick up a Kinect for the Xbox 360, the new platform for the game. So more time passed and I found myself in a conference room at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, eating a sandwich and watching Snoop Dogg through a glass window as he gestured to the press who had made it into his viewing room with him. The sandwich was tasty, so was a cookie or two but we couldn’t hear a single word Snoop said. He came out, said a quick “Hi” to the folks who had been watching him like an animal in a glass enclosure at the zoo, then left quickly as did a bunch of grumbling journalists. I finished my sandwich, confirmed my appointment time and thought this may not be the best start to what I already considered the next step in party gaming. You can see my shoulder in the image below, right at the edge of the window with the beige strap on my shoulder, it was when I got my sandwich.
I arrived promptly for my appointment later that day and the mood in the room did not seemed to have improved, if anything they looked deflated. The story was all about Yoostar On MTV and their partnership with such individuals as Snoop Dogg and Lady Gaga as well as having clips from pretty much every MTV reality show including the infamous “Jersey Shore.”
The tech op who took me in for the demonstration was showing some tiredness from the long day as well as rumors that the Snoop Dogg interview hadn’t gone so well. When I immediately started talking clipping and the “halo” or white area around him in the clip he said they were working on it but he personally thought it was fine. With assurances that it would have a much less obvious halo, I wrote it up then gave it little thought until I picked up my own Kinect and, with it, Yoostar 2. It is hard to truly appreciate the fun of Yoostar until you do it in your own home with someone else. Acting out the scenes, messing with props, changing the dialogue, with Yoostar 2 I could see this game might be the next evolution of party gaming to take the place of the music karaoke games. The greatest part is that there is no setup. Step in front of your Kinect and away you play!
You first choose a clip then you will be asked to frame yourself into an outline, once you are matched up with your location in the shot you can start performing.
(ed. note: I love the picture)
This one of the first ones I did, yep I am pretty comfortable being an idiot if it brings people a good laugh and as you can see I gave it a run with this “300” clip. My actual profile will be linked at the bottom of this article so you can see all the wonderful videos I have done so far. This was really a fun game and I could see it working in conjunction with games like RockBand but people tend to want to sing more than act so both would probably need to be set up. That was when I started looking forward to Yoostar On MTV coming out because not only would party goers be able to act along with the reality shows they could also sing along with their favorite songs and get keyed into them. So when the game arrived I was so excited to get it going, I figured a few test runs and I would be ready to have guests over.
It was at this point that I realized much like I had with Yoostar 2 there was a halo around me and though they had settings to try to help minimize it the only true saving grace is all about lighting. You need lots of good light, the closer to neutral colored bulb the better. In some it was just a couple spots like above, in others whole sections of clothing would go missing or the halo would turn into spikes.
Or on a few occasions the camera would place you in a certain location and the scene wouldn’t quite match up, you might look tiny compared to the others in the clip.
Or in others you might seem absolutely gigantic and terrifying to small kids.
Much like the music games you can play them for a score or freeplay and there is even a Challenge Mode that is pretty much the same as Career Challenge on music instrument games. The great part about this is you get stuck into the official videos. I would say my biggest concern with the game is that it came with over 80 possible scenes and only 10 of them were music videos. I guess I am more of the old generation but on a Music Television game I would hop that more than 1/8 of the scenes would be music. Since a good deal of their programming though is now reality shows it does make sense to pick its clips according to what MTV viewers are used to and let’s face it, some of the most notable popular culture characters are on those shows it is still pretty fun to act like The Situation and Snookie or somebody weeping on Road Rules Challenge.
Yoostar also has an excellent online community of like minded people having fun and being foolish plus they can vote on your videos and Yoostar 2 and Yoostar On MTV both interact through the same site so whichever game you upload from it puts them all on the same account.
Last Call
Let’s face it, you don’t need a clean “key” and perfect lighting to have fun with the Yoostar games, but it helps. All you really need is a fun group of people, a good collection of clips, which between the two games will give you over 150 to work with and a willingness to lose your inhibitions and be silly or serious depending on what seems like the bigger blast. These games are fun, they just need a bit more music in them to balance all their tv and movie scenes. I plan to take the games to the next party I go with that I know has a Kinect in the place! As promised here is a link to my account!
