Yoostar Entertainment System

Great for After-Prom Party 2010-06-06

Reviewer: wordgirl

I have to say,upfront,that I did not have anything to do with the mechanical set-up or running of the game. I just procured it for our local h.s. jr.-sr. after prom party. We made sure the people involved in running the Yoostar had the appropriate-speed laptop and that they could try it out the week before the event, to become familiar with it. I was busy with other parts of the evening, but the students posted some of their scenes on the Yoostar site, and I have to say they were pretty hilarious! It looked like they were really having fun with scenes from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Up in Smoke," "The Wizard of Oz," "The Blues Brothers," "The Terminator," etc.
As another reviewer stated, I can see how there are perhaps not enough scenes included to make it an ongoing game at home, without purchasing other scenes, but for an evening or event it truly was just right!
We let the students use the game and then used it for a prize later on in the evening.
I have to say the price on Amazon was wonderful, under $100, and it's even lower now. I kind of wish I had taken a chance to try it myself! The shipping from a third party, J & S Games, was wonderful. I wrote a note through Amazon explaining that I really needed it by a certain date and they wrote right back and handled it beautifully. I would recommend this for a party-type situation, just allow time to pre-test the game and get familiar with its workings and things should run smoothly!

entertainment 2010-05-13

Reviewer: M. Merriken

Bought this for my 16 year old daughter who loves acting and theater for Christmas. She didnt' like it, said the clips available for it were too old timey and limited and cheesy looking. Had to force her to get it out of the box and use it, she used it once and it sat never touched again. Camera is on the cheap side, green 'screen' is large, need a bit of room to set it up. My kids were not happy with it and we sent it back, a disappointment. Good idea but not quite what we thought.

too hard to use 2010-03-12

Reviewer: Sharon Hayes

Our organization had a photographer and videographer use the program to eventually use for entertainment.She worked at it for a long time and finally realized that it just would be so difficult to use-to actually get it to work the way it looked on their promotions-that we are returning it. It might do what it says,but only if you are a professional with a whole lot of experience using the game.

Bottom line-not an easy product, even for geeks-to use.

Brilliant, But Half Baked 2010-02-08

Reviewer: Confederate

If you've ever had a great pie or cake that looked fabulous, but wasn't fully cooked, you'll have a good idea of what YooStar is all about. The hardware alone is impressive, and the technology is wonderful; but YooStar isn't ready for prime time. It's incredibly buggy, doesn't work with Windows Vista or many laptops and notebook computers and it crashes frequently. It's difficult to setup and it begins without so much as a "Quiet on the set! Ready...action!" It just starts whether you're ready or not. Another huge downside to this is that your output files cannot be loaded on YouTube, but must be put on a YooStar website, which also is a bit slow and buggy. If this company goes out of business, you may find this very limited. Scenes are themselves limited in scope and time and most must be purchased online, which is where they really getcha. The great thing is that this can be made to work with a little more effort. Right now it's like those early expensive projectors you used to buy that worked great, but needed a new bulb with every few hours of use. It's a project that takes time to set up and might not work once you do. If you want to try it with your kids, it might be worth it. For now, pass until YouStar gets its act together.

Fun and Easy Entertainment 2010-02-08

Reviewer: ooojen

I bought the Yoostar system off a Gold Box deal around Christmas time. My 12-yr-old daughter was having a group of her friends over for a New Year's party, and I thought they might have some fun with it.
I'd intended to set everything up and run through it ahead of time so I could give the kids some help getting started, but as is wont to happen that time of year, I just got too busy to get to it. No problem-- they got everything set up on their own and were putting themselves in movies in no time. While they're all smart girls, there's not a bona fide computer geek in the bunch. If you're not tech-savvy, don't worry; you can still handle this one.
I left the girls to it most of the time, only occasionally checking their progress. They had a blast, and stayed entertained with it a lot longer than I'd expected they would. Some had a little trouble staying still enough to center themselves perfectly, but a little green "aura" here and there didn't appear to dull their enjoyment a bit.
I (with the rest of my immediate family) have since had the opportunity to play with the Yoostar system. We're having friends over soon, and I fully intend to bring it out then. I know we'll have a lot of fun with it. I expect it will come out again for family get-togethers over the summer, daughters' birthday parties, and so on.
This system isn't the sort of thing that will keep your kids occupied day after day, but as a "special occasion" activity, it's great, for kids or adults!