Yoostar 2: In the Movies Quasi-Review

Yoostar is an interesting idea but not one that hasnt been dabbled in before, remember You’re in the Movies?  This is Yoostar’s second offering, the first being a standalone product with it’s own camera available on the PC and Mac.  They’ve made the game more accessible this time around by releasing on the Xbox with Kinect support or the Playstation 3 using the Playstation Eye.  As with the previous Yoostar, you’re acting out real movie scenes and being scored for your acting.  You’re scored for the delivery and the on screen performance.  Alone the game is rather boring and a game that will make the most out of having a group of people together, you know, playing something other than Rockband, or a boardgame, or a kegger.  The developers try to eliminate this problem by implementing a social aspect to Yoostar 2 via Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.  You can share any clips you star in to any of the 3 and get all sorts of reactions from your family and friends.  By uploading those videos to the internet , you can get rated by other Yoostar users and see if you got what it takes to be a STAR!  It’s no replacement for a room full of people but its a nice feature to have to share silly scenes with everyone.

As you can tell, without real good lighting and a decent solid color backdrop, the detection isn’t all that precise.  My conditions weren’t ideal and probably what the average player will encounter. I’m using a ceiling fan light and I had objects in the background.  Your typical player will likely have a couch and things hanging off the wall behind them, or in my case a door frame.  There is a career mode that you can use to open up more clips and to put those acting chops to good use but its not as engaging as one would hope and as an end result, not get much play.  There is a decent selection of movies to start with but if you got the cash, Yoostar has a video warehouse full of dlc clips to download; from popular movies like Men in Black to TV shows like Barney and Friends.  Before you ask, I didn’t buy the Barney pack so I have no idea if you can act out Barney’s part and live your childhood fantasies; but I would still have your purple Dino suit ready just in case.  Overall this would be a nice additon to a college dorm where people are constantly in your room, invited or not, or to homes with a lot of gatherings.  For the single user, I would rent for the experience then send it back.  For me to keep it, there just needed to be more depth than perform for a high score.  Hey maybe an online mode where you can team up with a friend online and act out a scene together, something to hold my attention for more than one playthrough.