Be the star if your own game with EYETOY! (EyeToy Play)

Member Name: Wolfboy

Product:	EyeToy Play
Date:	17/05/04 (212 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great for multiplayer and for parties., Menus are easily navigated, Your the star of each game

Disadvantages: single player can get boring fast, Video messages take up a lot of space, Danger of hitting someone or something during a game

It all started with those Bemani dance games didn?t it? You know the way you had to bounce up and down embarrassingly in front of your TV. Well with this game, not only do you get to embarrass yourself in front of your friends, but you get to watch yourself do it as well. At least this game hasn?t made it into any arcades yet!!

This isn?t really a game. Instead it is actually 12 mini games in one. In each you must try and get the highest score for the prize of being immortalised in a photo for all the future losers to see. The only time I found this annoying is when my dad started playing and got the high score on one of the games, and now I cant beat it!! I think he cheated?

Basically you control everything using the EYETOY camera. The camera detects motion on the screen, so when you move your hand over an object, the object will react in a certain way. Since the controllers are disabled, this is how you navigate menus and interact with the games.

In game there are good guys and bad guys. The main good guy is called the Oracle. He is the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful master of the EYETOY: Play games. He is always on hand to offer help and tip on each of the games. There are 8 other good characters as well. Their names are: Dex, Toro, Vernon Bok, Max-Fu, B-Monkey, Kieu, Yumi and QT. Each of them are there to introduce you to each game you choose, and are there at the end to tell you what they think of your performance. Some of them also make appearances in the games themselves.

However as I said before there are bad guys. These wicked goons are out for one reason and that?s to spoil everyone?s fun! These goons consist of rats, monkeys, ninjas and imperial guards. There is also a large robot called &
#66;ig Robo Bro. The leader of this gang is the cloud-flying monkey, which uses a sword on a stick as a weapon, named Wonton.

For anyone that doesn?t know his or her Chinese literature, Wonton was based on a monkey called Sun, Wu-K?ung. Wu-K?ung feared death so left his home to become immortal. He trained hard in a distant land and learned to be immortal, to fight and how to ride on clouds. Later he acquires a staff, which he uses to fight with. Of course after he runs a rampage through heaven he is imprisoned under a mountain. I?m getting off subject here, so back to the review.

For the first time you turn on EYETOY, you are greeted with an introduction to EYETOY and told the dos and don?ts of successful and fun gameplay. The don?t are basically ways to cheat and you don?t want to do that, now do you? This only shows up the first time though so your forced to watch it, after that you will never see it again as long as your game has been saved!

You can play the games as a single player or 2 to 4 players in a multiplayer competition. In multiplayer, the computer records of who wins each game and show you a final scoring chart after each game. The game is bet for multiplayer because single player mode can get boring after a while, because you?ve no one to make fun of as the move around.
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| The Games |

Below are all the games you can play in EYETOY:

Beat Freak:
This is a music-based game, not to dissimilar to the Bemani dancing games. Instead of using a dance mat though you must move your arms in time with the music. You have to hit the speakers in the 4 corners of the screen as CDs, which fly out of your mouth do. The closer the CDs are to the center of the speaker the more points
you get.

Boogie Down:
This is the second music-based game. This time you must copy the moves of QT. Except this time you must remember how she danced and then copy it afterward. On easier difficulties, green lights light up to show you the correct direction to move your arms and QT will even repeat her dance. But there?s no help on the harder difficulties.

Kung Foo:
In this game you must fight off wave and wave of enemies as they try to attack you over 6 rounds. Ninjas, Imperial Guards and rats with rice bowls on their heads come at you from every direction and you must swat them away before they hit you. After round 2 and 4 there is a bonus round where you must break boards to get bonus points. After round six on harder difficulties you even get to fight the boss, Wonton. He flies around on his cloud and you must swat him quickly. Once you get a certain amount of points you get a temporary blurry mode, which makes you look like your moving really fast. This is my favourite game on the disc.

Slap Stream:
In this you must save Yumi and QT, who are dressed in bunny suits, from the evil ratmen, who captured them while they were on their way to a fancy dress party and are now holding them hostage in the clouds. You must try and swat the ratmen without hitting either of the girls or you will be hit by lightning. Get hit by lightning 3 times, its game over.

Boxing Chump:
As the name suggests it is a boxing game. You?ve been challenged to take on Big Robo Bro in the ring. The winner is decided over 3 rounds. You win by either knocking your opponent out or by taking the most health of them. In between rounds you get a chance to rest. You gain energy for your on screen self by moving around as much as possible. By the time the next round starts yo
ur on screen self may have full health, but in real life you could be extremely exhausted. Balance this right and you?ll be a winner.

Keep Ups:
Another sport game and this time its football. I know what some of you are thinking; you think that you don?t play football so you?d be completely rubbish at keep ups. Well luckily the physics on the ball are like that of a balloon. You can even cheat and use your hands if you want. Unfortunately though Wonton and his gang don?t want you to have fun so they are there to stop you. You can knock them out by hitting them with the ball, however avoid Wonton or he will burst it with his sword on a stick. One character also gives you a pinball like multi-ball. Ever tried keep ups with 2 balls?

UFO Juggler:
In this one you have to help UFOs into orbit. This is achieved by spinning them fast enough to get them moving upward. Simple enough? Wrong. If you spin them too fast they will overheat, go out of control and blow up. Spin them to slow and they will fall back down. More come out of the dock all the time so you?ll have to keep more than one spinning at once and if 2 collide they will explode! Wonton also makes an appearance. This time he has left his cloud behind and has commandeered a space ship with a laser attachment on the bottom and tries to blast your UFOs into oblivion!

Plate Spinner:
Another spinning game. This time though you are in a jungle spinning plates on sticks. You start off with just one plate spinning though eventually move up to 4. You must try and keep them going at optimum spinning rate, which can be recognised because sparks shine around your plate. However spinning your plates to slow will cause them to fall off and spinning them to fast will cause them to fly off and break. There are also evil monkeys tha
t jump on your plates and try to knock them off. If them are not at optimum spinning rate the plates will fall so be careful. Monkeys can be swatted to prevent them breaking your plates. Also animals in the background, like snakes, can be swatted for bonus points!

Wishi Washi:
Ever had to clean window? Think it was fun? No? Well in this game that?s exactly what you have to do. Although it is more fun than it sounds. You have 2 minutes to wash as many windows clean as possible. There are bonuses that fall down the windows. There is1 per window. These include 250 bonus points, 500 bonus points, clean the entire window or put more suds on the window. The extra suds are not worth any points though, which is annoying. Also the bonuses alternate so you may think you?re about to get the entire window cleaned but instead it changes so you get more suds on the window! You even get bonus points for cleaning bird poo off the window!!

Ghost Catcher:
This game is set in a graveyard. You have to try and prevent the ghosts from escaping from the graveyard by waving your hand over them and making them pop. Some ghosts are stronger than others and may take a while to pop! Sometimes vampire bats will fly at you but can be taken care of with a few swoops of your hand for extra bonus points! The Ghost of Wontons great, great, great, grandfather also makes an appearance if he thinks you are popping too many ghosts!!

Mirror Time:
In this game you must save Kieu from Big Robo Bro. He has her imprisoned in the magic mirror. To rescue her you will have to burst bubbles with her head in them in the corners of the screen. Of course it?s not that simple. There are also bubbles with Big Robo Bro?s head in them and hitting these causes you to lose a life. To make matters worse, Big R
;obo Bro is controlling the magic mirror and causing part of the screen to flip. To must try and work out which direction to move. This game gets very confusing after a while and you?ll need to be really patient to play it. Its so frustrating moving your hand one way in real life for it to go the opposite way on screen straight into a Big Robo Bro bubble!

Rocket Rumble:
This is definitely for those people that cannot wait for Halloween, Independence Day or some other event that involves fireworks! The idea is to light up each firework of the same colour as the are launch into the air, then bring your hand down on the plunger to make them explode. Touching a different colour will cause the lit up ones to reset and the new colour to be the one you touched second. There is a gauge at the bottom of the screen to tell you how much the spectators are enjoying it. If it drops to zero, it?s game over. I love this game and it?s my second favourite on the disc!

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| Extra Features |

That?s all the games but the features don?t end there. Here are the other features below:

Profiles:
You can take 3 pictures of yourself for a profile: a happy face, a sad face and a funny face. Happy and sad faces are used for when you win or lose at a game and funny faces are used for general things to show that it?s you who is playing! Its mainly used in multiplayer!

Playroom:
This is basically just a chill out mode where you can play around with some special effects. These were probably mean for some of the game but couldn?t be put in. there are 14 modes to choose from including: materialise, where your body fazes in and out, or copycat where there is a 2 second delay between what you do and what appears on the screen. There is also a no effect option where you can sit and look at yourself and pre
tend you have your own TV show or something.

Video Messaging:
What would a camera be if you couldn?t record messages, eh? In this you can choose how long you want to record for from 10, 30 or 60 seconds. You can also choose a style of background. Then just hit go and record you own short message. While playing back you?ll also discover that there is a built in microphone in EYETOY, so you will also get audio in your message. The only problem with this is that 10 seconds of video + Video is 1 meg big. So if your recording a 60 second message it is 6meg big and if your using an 8 meg memory card, that is near enough all your space used!

Overall
This is a great game that anyone can get into and use without any knowledge of how to use or even hold a Playstation controller. This game is only bad if you?re so self-conscious about how you look that you barely look at yourself in the mirror. But trust me when I say that?s all in your head and once you?ve gotten over it, you?ll find this game to be a most refreshing and enjoyable experience!! I highly recommend it to everyone.

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| Extra Notes |

EYETOY camera and future games
The EYETOY camera is not a wasted accessory for your Playstation. They have recently released EYETOY: Groove, which is a music-based EYETOY game. Also in development are EYETOY: Antigrav, EYETOY: Active, EYETOY: chat, EYETOY sports and possibly and EYETOY: play 2.

Webcam
If you search for a while on the Internet you can find a way to use you EYETOY as a webcam. It works, since I?ve
tried it. However I will not get into details in this review.

* Caution while Using *
Try to avoid having anyone or any thing close to you while playing games like Kung Foo as it is likely that while throwing a punch, it will connect with them in real life and not just with the computer characters.

Summary: