Overview
- Estimated achievement difficulty: 10/10
- Offline: 47/47 (1000/1000)
- Online: 0/47 (0/1000)
- Approximate amount of time to 1000: 30+ hours
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 300 songs.
- Number of missable achievements: None (Though it is theoretically possible to miss "SUPER STAR," you would need to be a God of this game getting max score on every song first try).
- Do cheat codes disable achievements?: No Cheats
- Does difficulty affect achievements?: Yes, Master Difficulty routines required.
- Glitchy achievements: None
- Unobtainable achievements: None
- Extra equipment needed?: Kinect Sensor required, Wireless USB mic or wired mic with mic stand recommended.
Introduction:
Welcome to Michael Jackson: The Experience, a game which allows you to perform a range of Michael Jackson’s songs with both singing and dancing. This is not an easy game by any stretch of the imagination. Actually, it is quite possibly the hardest Kinect game out there because the songs have 5 star requirements that are quite high compared to other dance games. Add in the fact that you don’t receive much in the way of feedback from the game and you are looking at an experience where you really have to work for your gamerscore.
Step 1: Play and 5 star every performance:
That’s really all you need to do to complete this game. But if you read the 10/10 difficulty and the introduction, you’ll know that 5 starring each song is not going to be easy. You’ll get a few achievements pretty easily, but many will require a lot of skill with Kinect and a good sense of positioning. There are 29 different songs on disc, 5 of which are only vocals and 9 songs have a “performance” mode and a “master performance” mode with a much harder dance routine. So there aren’t too many songs that you actually need to master, but the hard ones can be brutally hard. Everything else will come naturally as you try to 5 star everything except for possibly CALL IT A NIGHT and SUPER STAR, so just stay focused and practice. It’s all going to come down to practice in the end.
Just a quick note that almost every 5 star score listed in the guide below is just an estimate. It may take a few more or a few less points to hit 5 stars, but for the most part, the score should be within 1000 points.
You can do the songs in any order, but it is probably best to start with the vocal performances so that you can get a feel for the timing of the game, then take it song by song after that. If the song has a master performance, make sure you can 5 star the regular performance, then move on to the master performance before trying another song.
There is no step two. Unless of course you haven't attempted SUPER STAR or watched the credits yet.
General Tips:
Each song will contain tips and hints specific to the performance, but there are a few things that are common to every song.
Vocals:
Unlike most music games, there is no pitch guide. You are simply presented with the song’s lyrics in a karaoke style. As a result, it is quite difficult to succeed on a song if you don’t know it. If you’ve purchased this game, you are probably at least familiar with most of the more famous songs, like Billie Jean or Beat It. If you know the song, it becomes much easier to sing it. Alternatively, you can try placing your Kinect or mic near the speaker to have the game sing for you, but that is not necessarily the most reliable way of doing things.
If you need to hear the song, the full catalogue of songs that appear on this game has been compiled inTHIS THREAD.
In vocals, the small lag that most TVs and sound systems have can prevent you from getting a perfect rating on many phrases. As a result, it is often better to sing just a little ahead of the first note of the phrase in order to ensure that you hit that first word. The last word of the phrase is actually the most important, particularly on short phrases. Missing every word but the last can often save your multiplier and hitting every word but the last can cost you your multiplier.
Since you are going to have to dance and sing in the same song, make sure you have your mic handy for a quick transition. Some people use a wireless Lips mic, I use a Rock Band mic on a mic stand at the edge of Kinect’s view and others have one person singing and another dancing (though the achievements are supposed to be done solo and doing the routine twice to get both people the achievement may not be pleasant). Either way, make sure that your mic is always easily accessible and that you can sing in view of Kinect since the Crown icon that doubles your multiplier only appears in vocal sections and you need to be visible to Kinect in order to activate it.
Dancing:
First off, try not to dance in baggy pants. The tracking is decent in the game, but you probably should not make it harder for the game by hiding your legs. If you can, dance in shorts or some sort of tighter workout wear. On one performance, that adjustment was enough to give me an additional 10,000 points.
There are three types of dance moves in the game: the moves, the poses and the “Michael Jackson” poses. The Michael Jackson poses are coloured gold and are simply poses that are held for some time. The poses are coloured blue and vary in length from a single beat to two full bars, though the game will change things up and have some of the blue cards end up being single note transitions between poses, such as a rise from a crouching pose to a standing pose. For poses, it is often best to transition a bit ahead of the dance card so that when the timer runs down and the card comes up, you are already in the pose. This becomes tricky for single beat poses, so there is a certain amount of practice that will be required. Furthermore, in poses, it is quite easy to lose your multiplier on a pose by having one small difference between yourself and the dancers on screen, such as not getting low enough or moving left into the pose as opposed to moving right into the pose.
The regular dance moves are coloured white and almost always last for at least a bar. Often they repeat at least once and are quite easy to manage. This is not universal, though. The biggest issue is that sometimes the timing can be quite unforgiving. If you find that you are dancing behind the pace of the dancers on the screen, you will rarely get a perfect rating and quite frequently lose your multiplier. In general, you want to be keeping the pace of the dancers or the beat of the song. Sadly, what you want to keep pace with will vary from song to song (or even from section to section in the same song). Finally, be aware of what the game is actually tracking. A part of the card will be coloured in white to indicate the focus of the move, and in general that is what you need to nail.
Conclusion:
There are some moderately easy performances in this game, but a lot of the songs will require practice and dedication to learn the routine. Often the 5 star level requires maintaining your multiplier throughout the song or getting a large number of perfect moves and phrases. As you approach the completion, you will wish that you could adjust the calibration of the songs and actually practice the Master routines (only the regular performances are available in practice). Good luck and enjoy the songs.
[x360a would like to thank Capn Doug for this Roadmap]