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> Results: EyeToy: Play 2
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When Sony first introduced the EyeToy in the fall of 2003, GamerDad was quick to sing its praises for making video games accessible to all ages and making them more interactive than sitting on the couch and pressing buttons on a controller. It went on to be named the GamerDad Game of the Year for 2004. Since that time, more EyeToy compatible games have been published, each trying to extend the capabilities of EyeToy's video and motion capture interface. EyeToy: Play 2 is the first true sequel to the game that started it all, and while the original title has a few advantages, EyeToy: Play 2 adds and improves in almost every area.
The heart of the game comes from the approximately 75 games and activities available. A more apt title might be EyeToy: Sports. Some favorites from the original are back, but many of the games have sports related titles: Baseball, Soccer, Boxing, and Table Tennis. They are each reasonably fun games that try to create a mini game around the main sport theme. Music is also included in the form of an air guitar game, and drum title. The drum is a standard rhythm challenge, but Air Guitar is a pleasant change of pace because you need to hold onto the guitar fret in different locations while strumming on the main guitar soundboard. There are even symbols requiring players to make a "windmill" rock-star style strum for bonus points. It's a sure way to get your friends to look silly. Bubblepop is another new game with a familiar feel. Players must pop all the onscreen bubbles without breaking any red bubbles. It starts out easy, but soon gets difficult, culminating in waves of bubbles cascading horizontally across the screen. Later levels have evil red bubbles that will chain react causing whole red sections to explode in a puff of digital fireworks. In addition to the more familiar, several new games take things onto an entirely new track. DIY (I Yourself), Mr. Chef, and Secret Agent are more like short story games. Players complete a series of tasks to accomplish a final goal. In DIY, you might find yourself breaking down a brick wall, fixing leaks, cutting wood with a chainsaw, or many others. Clear a level and you are presented with a new challenge. Mr. Chef presents various food-based challenges, while Secret Agent focuses on tagging various objects on the screen while avoiding moving onscreen searchlights. In single-player mode, Secret Agent requires you to infiltrate a hideout, break into the safe and steal some documents. This provides intelligence that requires you to break into a new facility, and so on. These games are less party-friendly as they tend to go on for much longer periods of time, but they greatly enhance the single player game by adding a few games with a deeper theme.  The final game to mention is Monkeybars. Players attempt to maneuver down the side of a building by hitting the four corners of the screen. The top corners move you sideways while the bottom two corners swing you down to the left or right. It is a race to the bottom, with some blocks and other obstacles that appear in the way. There are also cherries and bananas that can be picked up for a higher bonus score. Perform well enough, and you get to challenge the computer to a race. Not the deepest game around, but a fun change of pace as a kind of simple action game that uses the EyeToy for movement. The new multiplayer games are great for parties. While the main games can be played with players taking turns, there are a few multiplayer games where all players are on screen at the same time. Each player takes control of a section of the screen and competes in a simple competition. Most of the games require players to move wildly around to accomplish some onscreen goal (such as hitting a rain cloud to cause it to water your plant), while a few require more precise, well-timed movement. In addition to the basic games, there is a wealth of other entertaining modes of play. The playroom contains interactive drawing modes, games that are controlled entirely by sound, and several modes of play based on overlaying the present screen with a saved copy of the camera's view of the background. The SpyToy mode turns the camera into a room monitoring device capable of activating on a timer, by sound, or if it detects motion. There is even a full-length demo version of EyeToy: Antigrav, a sort of hover-boarding game controlled by leaning your body and moving your arms up or down. The EyeToy series of games are accommodating to new players, however this one is more difficult than the original EyeToy: Play. Inexperienced players will still do well on most of the easy game modes, but even experienced gamers will find a difficult challenge on the hard levels. Some of the games are quite challenging even on the easy setting, while others fail to challenge until the hardest levels are set. While sometimes frustrating, this does help the game maintain interest until the harder levels are finally beaten. The game is not without some flaws. Since the difficulty is harder, some of the game is more sensitive to poor lighting conditions, and to beat the hardest levels care must be taken to ensure the motion detection settings are able to detect all areas of the screen. While not as problematic as some EyeToy titles, this one tends to be more difficult unless it can easily distinguish movement across the background. One handy tip is to accentuate the contrast. If playing with a light background, try to wear darker clothing or hold lightweight dark objects so the EyeToy can correctly register movement.  The menus are also slightly frustrating. Some playroom games listed in the manual are very difficult to find in the menus, and the difficulty settings for a game don't appear until after the first game is finished. For example, if a game is set on hard when you first select it from the main menu, you have to start the game and then come back to it to adjust it down to normal or easy. Finally, several games display the camera view on a small box onscreen. On smaller television screens it is difficult to precisely monitor one's position in the viewscreen. The EyeToy games are a great addition to any video game library as they are such a unique diversion and require active participation. EyeToy: Play 2 is almost a universal improvement over the original and comes highly recommended. However, it includes fewer of the purely toy-like interactive features of the original's playroom setting and is more game-oriented, making it less appropriate for very young children. 
There is little to fear here in terms of an ESRB rating, however the Kung-Fu style game does have minor cartoon violence as you knock characters around onscreen. The British-style narrators and characters tend to be a bit more caricatured than is typical in an American game, (such as outlandish hairstyles or an overweight soccer coach who's wearing a t-shirt small enough to cause his navel to be exposed.)
The difficulty targets this towards older grade school kids, as most games take a bit of controlled movement or patience. The original tended to reward even those players who moved wildly across the screen. Very young kids will be able to play with some of the toy-like modes, but there are fewer of the toddler friendly playrooms that were provided the first time around. Parents who aren't aware of the SpyToy features could run into a nasty surprise if its left running in inappropriate locations, otherwise it is a fairly nifty little feature. During the game, photos are taken of the players and photos of players with high scores are saved to the memory card. While probably not a problem for most parents, be aware that the EyeToy will record a photo of whatever it is shown during the photo shoot. Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: EyeToy: Play 2 |
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