THIS... IS... A VIDEOGAME!For those of you who aren't satisfied with quaffing one beer
too many and belting out "Tom Sawyer" in your best falsetto on 'Rock Band,'
Yoostar Entertainment offers a new way to humiliate yourself in front of
friends — and this time the results are guaranteed to be captured on video.
Yoostar 2 allows you to re-enact celebrated scenes from a
number of movies, covering decades of Hollywood history from Casablanca to The
Hangover. Your console -- via Xbox
Kinect or the Playstation "Eye" camera — videotapes your amateur theatrics and
places them directly inside the original video of the actual film. The first iteration of Yoostar was a somewhat
complex affair, requiring players to erect a greenscreen before starting a
scene. No more: the Xbox and Playstation
can remove you from your real-life backdrop with remarkable swiftness and
ease. All you need to do is make sure
that the room is well lit, and that your inhibitions are securely stowed away.
We took a spin with Yoostar 2 at the Yahoo! Games
offices. Mustering my best Ah-nold
accent, I enacted the famed "I'll Be Back" confrontation from The Terminator,
while video producer Mike Zipkin channeled Forrest Gump in a well-known
bus-stop scene. The results, mercifully,
were not distributed on the expansive social-network system that will go live
when Yoostar launches, and will allow players to rate and compare their own
performances and those of friends.
Yoostar 2's most obvious application will be as a party game
— we can easily see this being the centerpiece of many a friendly living-room
gathering, preferably aided with a little liquid courage to help shyer gamers
step onto the virtual set. There's no shortage
of scenes to play — the game will ship with 80 ready out-of-the-box, with plans
to add 5-10 new scenes per week as downloadable content.
Inner thesp intrigued?
If so, keep an eye out for Yoostar 2 to release for Xbox 360 and
Playstation 3 in early March.