Plus XP

Before we get the ball rolling here. I have not had the opportunity to get a hands on go with EyePet yet, which is a bit of a bummer really as it looks pretty darn interesting. But with that said I want to give you, the gaming public out there a good insight into what this little gem has in store. Thats if you dont know already of corse.

You may remember me briefly mentioning the EyePet in an article about a week ago. I thought to myself after reading that article over again that I gave next to no information on this, somewhat revolutionary game. Well I say revolutionary, developers always like to over exaggerate their games these days, so lets just say this is more of a revolutionary idea. If I ever get my hands on this thing, be rest assured that I will give my total and honest opinion to you all, till then I am going to give you my thoughts on what I think this, some what ambitions game says it will give the gamer of today.

So lets give you a bit of background information on EyePet. For starters it is actually developed by the Sony London team, which to be honest was a nice little surprise for me, meaning we get something first for once. The EyePet is already out in the UK and from what I have heard Americans are going to have to wait as late as April 2010 to get their hands on it. That aside what does this game physically have to offer us?

For starters this is basically a Tamagotchi times 10,000 or so, you remember those little hand-held things that would fit on your key ring, that would house little pixel style animals for you to feed, take to the vets and clean up their poo? Well this is the console generations answer to that. Sony have attempted to make some use of the PlayStation 3 eye camera, you play host to a new animal, which is kind of a mixture between a monkey and a Mogwai (any gremlins fans will know what I am talking about). The idea is you place your Playstation Eye camara in the room then on the TV screen appears your new, hybrid pet in your living room, meaning it can fully interact with the enviroment. Say if you roll a ball across the camera, the EyePet will jump out of the way to avoid it, or if you clap your hands suddenly, you will startle the poor little creature. This thing can supposedly listen to what going on in the room your in and totally interact with the enviroment.

This all sounds pretty damn cool to me. I mean who wouldn’t say no to a cute cuddly creature that you wouldn’t have to physically muck out, or live in fear of for tearing up your curtains. With all that said I still live in speculation that this will be 100 percent responsive to every single action you will make. OK granted this is not on the same scale Milo or Natal is, and to be honest I kind of respect that, as it s not too big for its own boots. But my experiences with the Playstation 2 EyeToy in the past have been pretty poor. I mean washing windows and kicking ninja butt was great and all, but at times I found the whole experience a little non responsive, that and you had to position yourself exactly right to get the game working at its best.

With that all said I am pretty sure that Sony have done the right thing here. I mean they are technology geniuses after all. I mean, Microsoft tried to pull off your in the movies, and my experience of that game was qnot to great if I am honest. Unless your in a totally white room with no shadows what so ever your experience with that game would be as rubbish as mine was I think.

EyePet looks set to give the bench mark for hands free gaming. Lets hope future projects like Natal achieve what Eye Pet has kicked off this generation.

Garv.