How much fun can the whole family have? (EyeToy Play)

Member Name: sit2020

Product:	EyeToy Play
Date:	25/05/04 (121 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great all round family entertainment

Disadvantages: sore arms and out of breath

This is based on the Eye Toy ?Play? for the Playstation 2, there is another version of the eye toy available called ?groove? I have not played that yet, but believe you can buy the disc without having to buy another eye toy.

Way back in the good old days of the early consoles (Nintendo Sega etc) the times when a console meant fun for all the family. I remember those times with fond memories, the graphics where not great and the game play was simple. Even so the whole family was able to enjoy themselves. But times moved on graphics improved game play became ever more complex and the consoles moved from the family living room to the children's bedrooms. They went there mainly because the older and younger family members found it harder to compete on a fair level.

I never thought I would ever again see a time when the whole family would become involved as a family in a console game again. With the playstation 2 (PS2) on the market the likelihood seemed even more remote. How wrong could I be.

Enter the eye toy. I must admit the first time I heard of this was when my son started raving about how cool this was. He had seen it demonstrated in a computer store and now wanted one. I must admit my first thoughts were an add on for the PS2 at about £40.00 was a waste of money. But he protested and as he had enough money from his birthday left over I relented and allowed him to make this purchase. Please do not ever tell him how good I really think this is.

Firstly £40.00 ish sounds a lot, but for the amount of family fun it?s cheap. At first I thought that as with other add ons for consoles it was purely that an add on. But with it comes a PS2 disc with no less than twelve games on it. I think that was what really swayed me. You pay around £40 for a full priced console game, so to
get twelve games plus the eye toy gadget I think is good value for money.

The idea sounds silly and to be honest it really is. But that is silly in a good all round family kind of a way. Not since the early console days has a family been able to have fun. One to four players can play at any one time, although only one will be actually playing at any one given time.

The idea and set up of the eye toy is a very simple one. Basically it is nothing more than a glorified web cam for the PS2. You place it above the television or monitor and face it towards you. This way you see yourself on the television and are able to interact directly with the game, at the same time see yourself on the television. Having connected the eye toy to your PS2 via the PS2 USB port, placed it above the television and put the disc in the PS2 you are ready to have fun. When you switch your PS2 on you will see a blue LED on the front of your eye toy, this is just to let you know that the eye toy is receiving power from the PS2. After the opening credits you will see a silhouette, you should position yourself so you are inside this.

Controlling the eye toy is done by standing in front of the eye toy and waving your hand over the buttons that are on your television screen. Select, Back etc. You also have limited control by using an ordinary PS2 controller. Some games require you to place your hand over the eye toy to exit them, these are things like the help section and the playroom.

Okay so far it sounds simple and it really is. There are a couple of bits you may need to twiddle with slightly during playing, firstly people are not all the same height, this is an observation I made whilst walking down the high street. With this in mind the camera can be moved up and down quite easily. The sec
ond is the lens has a manual focus, this may need to be turned to get the player into sharp focus, but I have found once one player is focused you very rarely need to adjust it any more. The instructions say the ideal position to stand away from the television is between one and two metres, I tend to disagree with this as some of the games you will find yourself standing a bit further away than that.

A couple of further points worthy of a mention if you see a red LED on the front of the eye toy, then the lighting in the room is either too bright or too dark. Too bright and your face will look ghostly pale, too dark and you will not see yourself on the television very well or appear dark. Both of these can effect game play.

I would recommend you have and use a memory card for this game. Because you can then create each players profile. This involves letting the eye toy take three pictures of you. One Happy, One Sad and One Silly. You then enter a three-letter name and your profile is complete. I do think that little touches like that enhance the overall theme of having family fun.

A couple of problems that we have found whilst playing, everybody that can be seen by the eye toy can have an effect on game play, therefore everyone either needs to sit still or make sure they are not in the eye toys view. Also before you start have a good look around the area that the players will be standing and make sure swinging arms cannot knock into anything , that's because whilst playing you will find total commitment and as a result things can get knocked over. The other thing to be wary of is any light that can be seen by the eye toy (table lamps etc) can make it impossible to play games as the strong light source interferes with the eye toy.

Now onto the games themselves....

Rocket Rumble
As with most of the games
you stand facing the television looking at yourself. This game involves you passing your hand over rockets as they fly through the sky, the rockets are in different colours, you try to select the same colour rocket, then press either of the plungers that are by your lower left and right hand side, before selecting more rockets. If you do well you will hear the crowds ooohh and aaahhh and cheering. I find this quite a good hand eye coordination test and great fun.

UFO Juggler
Again facing the television, you have flying saucers that are being launched to either side of you, your task here is to run your hands back and forth across them to make them spin and fly up to the top of the screen, if you let them fall they will explode also if you make them spin too hard they will start to wobble and can also explode. If they do wobble then stop touching them and they will slow down. I find this quite easy until a spaceship comes by and stops the flying saucers in their tracks, that's when the fun begins, trying to get them to the top and the ones below them on the move at the same time.

Kung Foo
Again facing the television, I was told that on Big Brother they played a version of this game. You have little cartoon ninja characters jumping at you from above and below from both sides of you, this game is quite a fast one to play as they come you have to hit them, a bit like swatting flies. You also get them coming at you on clouds these chaps also need to be clouted. If you miss any your energy will be gradually drained until the games over. in between levels you get bonus rounds that involve hitting and breaking wooden boards, on the easier levels hitting them anywhere is enough, on the harder levels you need to be very accurate. This is one that makes my arms ache afterwards but it is good fun.

Mirror Time
This is more a thinking game,
yet again you face the television, the four corners of the television has either green or red lights, if green then run your hand over them but leave the red ones alone. That sounds simple and it is at first, but then the television picture is reversed, so you want to move your left hand but need to move your right, if that?s not confusing enough, it goes upside down upside down and back to front, each refreshed screen is random and you do not know what hand needs to go where. I would say that this is one of my favourites not because it?s not high paced but because the idea is so original and novel.

Ghost Catcher
Again facing the television. Ghosts and bats are the order of the day, you need to rub your hands over them, the bats vanish but the ghosts grow bigger until they pop, be warned they are ghosts and are not that easy to see. This is fairly fast in pace and is one game that will leave you out of breath, but it is also a very funny game to watch and play.

Boogie Down
This is almost too funny, watch the other players, they all look like something out of grease. Again facing the television, a dancer points at a number of five lights (two to the left and right and one over your head) in time with the music playing, you have to copy what she does and stay in time with the music. You need to keep your concentration here or you will forget the order and add to that staying in beat with the music makes it a good fast and very challenging game. You also have a choice of different tunes to dance to, this is a step back in time to the discos of the eighties.

Slap Stream
Yet again you face the television. To your left and right, above and below are four clouds. Cute little white bunny rabbits appear, leave these alone but you also get not so nice looking characters appear, give these a quick slap and off they go. If you hit the bunny rabbits you lose a
life three and its game over. I find I can do this but it takes a lot of thinking to hit the bad dudes and leave the rabbits alone, its a thinking and action game combined. Personally I do not think of this as one of the better games.

Plate Spinner
You?ve guessed it face that television. this time you?re in the jungle and trying to spin plates on sticks, just like they do in those circus acts. Just keep your hand moving over the plate to keep it spinning if it slows and starts to wobble spin it some more. Being in the jungle you also have creepy crawlies that need to be hit. Again this game is ok, but on a personal note it does not have the fun factor that some of the other games have.

Wishi Washi
Yep standing facing the television, your looking at the television screen covered in a lather as you move your hands you clean the screen. buckets come down rub your hands over these for points or a rinse that cleans the screen or it might be more soapy water that puts more lather back. This is one that is played as fast as you can, the quicker you go the more windows you get to clean. Not forgetting that bird mess takes a bit more cleaning. All of this while George Formby is singing ?while I?m cleaning windows?. This is a fast and furious game that will leave you out of breath. Great fun.

Keep Ups,
Again facing the television, but you will need to be a bit further back. The idea is you head the ball to keep it up in the air, watching people head an imaginary ball is very funny. also you get people hanging out of windows either side of you, most will score you points if you hit them with the ball but you have team mates that actually reduce your score if they are hit. If you stand too close, your body can interfere with the ball and make it impossible to control. You get three balls and you score points for the amount of
times you keep it in the air as well as the bonuses for hitting people. This game really does get you out of breath.

Boxing Chump
You stand sideways on to the television, that?s right not facing it. You that way face a computer-generated boxer. This is simple you hit him. But I found it hard to try and box and look at the television, so my method is I just look straight ahead and shadow box, as fast and as hard as I can. This has to be the one game that really gets your cardio vascular system working like no other. I enjoy playing this, but not too often.

Beat Freak
You stand facing the television. To your left and right above and below are four speakers. When you pass your hands over the speakers they pulse. You have CDs that come from the centre of the screen that fly towards one of the four speakers, the idea is your hand hits the speaker at the same time as the CD. It starts out fairly easy but does get faster with more CDs as the game progresses. You can also choose different musical tracks. I find this a very good entertaining game and with the added bonus of different tracks. As with a lot of the games watching the person playing is very funny, faces concentrating and doing a strange dance has to be seen to be believed.

So that is the twelve basic games, the fun does not stop there, each game also has a help section, a guru will give you hints on how to play each game as well as the chance to practise prior to playing.

Then you have video messaging, you can record messages with different backgrounds, saved to your memory card to playback at any time.

Then for the really young children is the playroom, here you will find a further thirteen games, briefly these are....

Sparkles
As you move around, you appear to have various multi-coloured sparkles falling of
f of you. The effect is cleverly done.

Snow
Just simple snowflakes off all different sizes and shapes falling from the top of the screen.

Spiders
I would look at this closely before letting any younger children have fun as for some children it can be frightening. You are presented with a web over the screen along with a load of black ugly spiders. As soon as you move the spiders sense you and attack you. I guess this could be fun and it is cleverly done, but my opinion is they could have either left this off of the disk or at least put a warning and placing it inside what they call the playroom I honestly think is a mistake. Especially as they have a rating of 3+ on the box.

Copycat
Very simply a delayed reaction to your movements.

Nervous
This makes you shake as you move.

Mirrors
The little kids love this, it?s like the hall of mirrors you get at the fairground, with random distortions.

Rainbow
This has a multi-coloured effect as you move round.

Underwater
The screen is blue on this one, with fish that swim away when you touch them, this is a nice one that children love.

Bubbles
Falling from the top of the television are big bubbles, when you touch them they pop into smaller and smaller ones, another game that little children love, simple game play for them.

Leaves
Leaves blowing about, that react to your movement.

Balloons
Children love hitting balloons and they will enjoy this, hit them hard enough and they will pop.

Bees
As with the spiders I would advise discretion when having little children are going to play this. You have a bee hive beside you inside are the bees, hit the hive and out come the bees, they are not happy at having been disturbed and will do their best to chase you,
land on you and sting you.

Materialise
Move and you re-materialise, a bit like they do on Star Trek.

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