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Eye Toy: Play
The eyes have it!
by Susie Vee
| PLATFORM:
PS2 |
| PUBLISHER:
Sony |
DEVELOPER:
Sony |
GENRE:
Party Game |
ESRB:
Everyone |
The trouble with much of gaming is that it’s largely a solitary
endeavor. Even multiplayer games are usually played with unseen
opponents over the internet, or at best, one other person. But one
of the things we like about gaming is the potential social aspect.
And the best version of that is when you can get a group of friends
together for party-style gaming.
Sony’s new EyeToy is a combination of a basic webcam and
a disc with games and utilities. Basically, you plug the webcam
into the USB port on your PS2 and the EyeToy: Play software
puts your image smack in the middle of the screen. You position
yourself inside a faint onscreen outline, choose one of several
mini-games and you’re off.
 The
games work by tracking the movement of your arms and head, and reacting
accordingly. With decent lighting and a fairly plain background,
the tracking works really well. In fact, there’s no use for
the standard PS2 controller at all – all interaction and navigation
is done through hand movements.
All the games are somewhat similar, from Kung Foo, where
you swat away mini-ninjas to Wishy-Washy, where you wave
your hands to clean soap suds off the screen. By themselves, they’re
really not that interesting, but once you add other people to the
mix, EyeToy becomes the ultimate party game. Taking turns at shadow
boxing or matching song rhythms is oddly addictive once you’re
on the spot in front of a group of friends.
As a stand-alone game, EyeToy isn’t really something you’d
try more than once or twice on your own. Perhaps future game titles
will make more original use of the unique hardware/software setup.
But as a party game, EyeToy is a winner, and will easily make you
the life of any party.
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