In the picture box

Another silly purchase even though we're supposed to be saving for loan repayments. When will the madness stop? :P

Alison and I picked up an Eyetoy for the PS2 late last week and have been playing a bunch of games for it. I remember when the Eyetoy first came out yonks ago I thought it was a great idea even if the first few games relied completely on novelty factor. Thankfully the game companies (at least those that have bothered developing titles for this peripheral) have come up with some valid uses for the device that turn out to be surprisingly fun.

Now the whole idea about the eyetoy (basically a webcam) is to actually put you into the game and allows you to interact visually with it. Moving your body and using your hands to hit buttons, smack zombies, balance eggs... you get the idea. Only downside we've found so far is that the motion detection can be somewhat finicky and it really doesn't like low light rooms. Still, when things work it almost feels like you're in Tron.

Tried to take some pictures for this post but as you can imagine, it's pretty hard to take a picture of yourself in a webcam without the camera getting in the way. Just use your fertile imagination or click on the links. There you go.

We've managed to pick up three games for the thing.

Kinetic

Came packaged with the device when we bought it. It's basically a bunch of games with an exercise slant to them. Games are split up into cardio, toning, combat and mediatation which attempt to give you an overall workout. Gameplay basically boils down to chasing after blue balls while avoiding red ones or punching stuff rapidly or testing your hand eye coordination and balance. Pretty fun and by the end of it you get a good workout (I'm still knackered and I stopped playing three days ago). Kinda disturbing how much fun it can be to play what's essentially a virtual variant of "Piggy in the middle".

Haha look at the fat guy chase the blue ball

Sega Superstars

Bunch of little crappy minigames that I thought Alison would like. Has a sorta party-game feel to the title though oddly enough this doesn't support multiplayer modes. Still, there are quite a few games which are all based on Sega favourites (Sonic, Crazy Taxi, Nights etc) so it's pretty fun. Especially like the Virtua Fighter game as you get to actually beat people up. Once again tiring as heck though (hmm... maybe should increase fitness before playing videogames)

Haha look at the fat guy beat up a girl

Groove

Probably my favourite so far of the three (Beatmania and Rhythm game freak that I am). This is a music game (or dance game more specifically) that involves hitting six rings in time with the music. The feel is pretty close to Para Para Paradise (shudder) though at least this one doesn't have quite as much in common with a Japanese Party Girl dance. Lots of fun and finally this has multiplayer modes so it'll be a blast during a party with "open minded" friends. *cough*

Haha look at the fat guy dance