EyePet Preview
Since last year's E3, Sony's been busy banging the drum for the Playstation Move—the company's answer to Wii motion detection. At the Sony press event at this year's GDC, the PS Move was again the big selling point, as evidenced by the wide array of games being demoed there that all make use of this new technology. One of these games, EyePet, (which incidentally has been out in Europe for some months now) is presently being customized both for North American audiences and for the PS Move and is set to be re-released later this year. Fortunately for everyone at the event, once the initial Sony presentation was over, we were allowed to do a little one-on-one bonding with this new-and-improved EyePet.
First of all, be warned—exposure to EyePet may have side effects such as headaches and dizziness due to extreme cute overload. Before trying the game, we sat through a too-adorable trailer set to that unbearable “Fireflies” song by 'tween hero Owl City. Upon regaining consciousness, we sat down on the floor in front of a PS3 equipped with a PS Move setup, and lo and behold—found ourselves sharing the space with a perky little furry-monkey-dog...thing. As a bit of background, the European version of EyePet was criticized for using a somewhat clunky card mechanic that tended to get in the way of fun rather than encouraging it. The new version of EyePet seems considerably smarter than that, seeming to detect not only the motion of the PS Move, but of your hands as well.
Anyway, we spent some time making our EyePet happy by petting it as well as watching it chase our hands around the screen, then we decided to give the PS Move a try. From our half hour with EyePet, we can say that in general, the PS Move's fidelity is pretty good—certainly better than the always-squirrely Wii motion detection system. The PS Move controller seemed capable of mimicking even the subtlest of movements surprisingly well, which definitely helped promote the game's intended illusion. The first thing we did was wash the EyePet, spraying it with water, then sudsing it up. (By the way, it's impossible to deny the high cute factor of this activity.) We then were able to use a virtual blow dryer to fluff our pet back up, thus demonstrating some of the best aspects of the game's graphics. The fur moved freely as we moved the dryer around it, and looked extra soft and shiny once we were done. Now if only there wasn't such a large gap between the high quality of the 3D EyePet and the relatively low quality of the real world image returned on screen by the Playstation Eye, Sony would really be in business.
We spent a while grooming, and then we tried using the controller to draw shapes. The cool thing about these shapes was that once done, they turned into virtual 3D objects the EyePet could play with, things like balloons which could be batted around the room to the obvious delight of our furry little friend. The balloons were pretty cool but they weren't the only things you could make with the drawing tool; we also “blew” bubbles for the EyePet to play with (at one point he even got sucked into one and started floating off in it) and we created a tiny airplane that triggered a mini-game. Yes, once the plane went from line drawing to 3D object, our little pet jumped confidently into the cockpit and started buzzing through a blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds. His objective? To pop as many colorful balloons as possible. Aw! So cute! Some of you might think we're being sarcastic here but we're not. It really was cuter'n a box full of baby bunnies.
Our session was over too soon so while we had enough time to get a good impression of the overall mechanics, we didn't get to try the EyePet customization. This feature allows you--if your tolerance for cute truly knows no bounds--to customize your EyePet, dressing it as a princess, a pirate, an astronaut, and many other cute and theme-y things. Sounds like just the ticket for those people (you know who you are) who think it's a good idea to put sweaters on dogs.
The battle for motion detection dominance is just getting underway but if nothing else, the EyePet GDC demo made it all too obvious what the must-have gift is bound to be come this Christmas. EyePet is currently in development and is slated for re-release (on PS3 only of course) in North America this holiday season.
