Reviews»Xbox 360»Project Rap
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Kareem Ali 3.5

Project Rap

 

  • The good

    The competitive word play can be entertaining and humorous

  • The bad

    Song choice limitation reduces the replayability value

  • The ugly

  • Project Rap is a music game developed by Highbrow Games where you play the role of an aspiring rapper. Well, aspiring rapper isn’t the correct term because it would imply some seriousness in your endeavors, and Project Rap is all about having fan using rap in the most comical way. There are many options as to how you can enjoy your foray into the rap genre. You can either freestyle and have at your disposal numerous words to create the most unusual rhymes, or you can battle a friend or CPU to see who can come out on top with the quickest flow. But it’s not just about who’s the quickest because you can’t just spit anything, the fun is trying to come up with bars that make some kind of sense and that’s no easy feat. Or if you want to pretend to be a battle rapper, you can exchange “yo mama” rap insults with your opponent. Either way, Project Rap is about word play so make sure you come out on top. The Xbox Live streets are watching.

     

    GAMEPLAY

    When I first got Project Rap I didn’t have a clue what to expect. Obviously I’m not a rapper and I’m well past my days of pretending to make beats or rhyming with friends for fun growing up. I wasn’t intimidated going into this game at all nor should you because it’s about having a good time. There are different modes that are available: 1 player freestyle (which allows players to still go head to head), player vs CPU, and player vs player. Even though there are different modes the objective remains the same with slight changes to the game play.

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    After selecting from one of the pre-generated rappers, each with a different voice, you can watch your rapper be very animated while you try to create the best rhyme. Now, you don’t create the entire rap nor do you select a beat. The rapper says part of a sentence and you have to select the final word in that sentence. For example, the line could be “Roll up to the club and my homies” and you have to select one word from pages of words to complete the line. After you select the word, the line is repeated with the word you selected and occasionally another word that wasn’t said the first time. So the previous line could become “Roll up to the club and my homies all (your word).” After you get the hang of it it’s not tough to figure out the potential words that will be added prior to the word you select and after playing through once you’ll know which word it’s going to be.

     

    There are rhyming lines and non-rhyming lines, and if you’ve ever listened to a rap song or listened to anything where sentences have to rhyme then you know both can be equally important because one sets up the other. So the word you select to complete the first line can be anything, but the word you select to complete the second line will have to rhyme with the first one in order to increase your score. The game helps you with this, depending on your mode and difficulty, by color coding the words that rhyme and the words that don’t rhyme. If you get a streak going your score multiplier increases, however the sentences you form don’t actually have to make sense. So there is a certain novelty in one player freestyle mode and either your curiosity to see how your rap sounds after finishing it will keep you interested, or maybe genuine interest to see what’s the best freestyle you can make. For me it was more the former as it can be pretty limited in terms of word selection after completing the song a few times. You can change up the format instead of making every other line rhyme to produce a different song at the end but it would have to be for fun because that won’t help your score. Also, there were some occasions where it would have been better if the rapper just said the line after the delay in choosing the word instead of throwing off the rhythm by saying “yo check it,” and then continuing.

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    Another reason for trying the 1 player freestyle repeatedly is for practice for the other game play modes, which is where Project Rap really shows its potential. In competitive mode, the rap alternates between who selects the final word in the non-rhyming line and in the subsequent rhyming line. So for example, if player 1 (or the CPU) selects “guide” as the word in the non-rhyming line, you have to select a word from the randomly chosen list that rhymes with it. But you don’t have all day to do so because the longer you take the less points you get, and if the words don’t rhyme, well your rap skills are suspect. And if you’re playing against the CPU, it eliminates words you might want to use, so if you’re too slow you’ll be forced to choose a word that doesn’t rhyme. This will require additional practice depending on the difficulty because sometimes the CPU would eliminate words almost immediately and of course it would be impossible to win. So again, you’re awarded more for speed than you are for making sense in most cases. Once you understand that then you can enjoy it more because this aspect of the game play was entertaining, as you can do the same thing to the CPU when the roles are reversed after every four turns. If you’re playing against a friend, you can have fun with the humorous aspect of the rap as well as the competitive wordplay. So yes, this is even the type of novelty game that you can have fun with a group of inebriated friends who get kicks out of seeing people mess up while trying to perform something musically. (For the record, I don’t drink).

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    To reinforce that notion, there are “yo mama” jokes, and once again you have to select the final word to create the best insult. And if you enjoy yo mama jokes you might have fun with this mode, and not because the jokes by themselves are so unique, but due to the competitive word play and the absurdity of it. And of course all your songs are saved so you can replay them over but without any delay or hesitation from the player taking time to select a word. So you can either laugh at your ineptitude as a rapper or believe in your own mind that you’re the King of Rap.

     

    SUMMARY

    Project Rap is a game that has value as a novelty game in the form of humor and competitive wordplay. It’s not a game that will help you launch a rap career, or to be approached with extreme seriousness. The enjoyment you’ll get out of the single player mode is dependent on your curiosity to get lines to rhyme and the different combinations in this game but it can be limited since there isn’t a catalog of songs to use. The competitive modes were much more enjoyable because the game play changed from just selecting words to trying to select the best words to get the highest score with limited time, while also trying to throw off your opponent. I recommend Project Rap if you’re curious about how well you would do in trying to construct a rap song, or if you’re looking for a novelty game to have silly fun with friends. You won’t feel like Rakim when he said “Now that’s 21 MC’s ate up at the same time,” but at least you’ll be able to laugh at friends.

  • Gameplay ( 8 )
    Graphics ( 6 )
    Sound Quality ( 7 )
  • Total score 7.0

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