EyePet Review

The PlayStation Eye, successor to the PlayStation2's wildly popular (in some circles) EyeToy, hasn't had the penetration that Sony probably expected and certainly hasn't convinced anybody that it's worth dropping the joypad for the more habitual gaming fix.  With the exception of Eye of Judgement, which turned Pokemon into that game of virtual chess that C3PO and Chewbacca played on the Millennium Falcon, and a handful of PlayStation Store titles, the camera peripheral has largely been resigned to novelty features such as sticking your face on a virtual character or killing a classic on SingStar and uploading the resulting clip.  

Still with the untitled motion controller heavily reliant upon it and advanced functionality such as facial recognition on the horizon, things look a little brighter for the long forgotten peripheral.  Leading this charge is SCEE London, creators and purveyors of all things Eye related, with the release of EyePet.  It's a strange mishmash of a Tamagotchi with a gesture interface that borders the sci-fi world of augmented reality.  

Let's get this out of the way to begin with, EyePet is sickeningly cute.  Take a look at the videos, I defy even the most cold-hearted recluse not to gawp in affection the first time that the little critter emerges from his egg and takes his first tentative steps onto your living room floor.  Presumably the result of an unsavoury union between a chimpanzee and the common cat (the EyePet HQ professor bizarrely doesn't elaborate on the origin of his species), the artists at SCEE London have managed to create something that you can't help but feel some sense of attachment to.  As he runs and pounces on your floor, depicted on the TV screen, he'll react to some things, seemingly being able to recognise what a foot is and when it's aimed towards him, as he jumps away and looks pretty displeased that you even contemplated booting it up its behind.

Setting up the PS Eye is simple enough, although the EyePet Professor is on hand to guide you through this (repeatedly every time you boot the game up and choose the wrong option).  Under the uniform fluorescent strip lights in TVG's virtually windowless office, EyePet and the PS Eye performed flawlessly.  However, when EyePet took a trip to a normal living room with an everyday window the results weren't so impressive; it seems EyePet suffers from the same problems that have troubled all of the games that used the peripheral before it.  A special card that comes with the game is used to interact with the game's many items, simply holding it aloft to the camera to change it into a variety of objects ranging from the everyday items such as a shampoo bottle to the slightly stranger bubble dispenser.

The 'game' is structured loosely, perhaps a little too loosely at times even considering its virtual pet stance.  Beyond ensuring the pet is well looked after, fed, cleaned, and kept physically active and mentally alert, the EyePet Programme provides a 15-day setup that sounds a bit like a plan to give up smoking but actually serves as the 'fun' beneath the overall experience.  Each day provides a range of different challenges, which serve as a tutorial of sorts to the new stuff you'll get your hands on along with rewards in the shape of new toys to play with and costumes to dress the unfortunate creature.  The game locks these challenges to a certain amount each day, which is evidently designed to emulate Nintendo's 'play a little, every day' approach, but not entirely helpful if you're trying to review the game under tight deadlines.  Fortunately setting the PS3's clock forward was enough to advance through the programme, although there was a tinge of guilt when we knocked it forwards a few months and found our pet looking a little unkempt, hungry and sporting a longer, shaggier coat.

To be fair, EyePet does push a substantial amount of gimmicky material at you, which could keep a younger audience entertained.  The ability to draw things on paper, hold them towards the camera and watch as your pet attempts to replicate them on-screen is pretty impressive.  This feature expands as the Programme progresses, allowing you to create cars, airplanes, robots, and puppets, all of which are used in further challenges and to keep your pet entertained.  It's a smart feature, undoubtedly the only thing that really warranted a rise of the eyebrows, and generally produces good results.  Watching your little pet hop onto a plane that you drew and fly above your head on the screen into the virtual clouds above, playing mini-games such as following a bird or popping balloons, is pretty entertaining.  Looking at it from a slightly different perspective, you have to applaud SCEE London for attempting to get kids to draw and use their imagination; it may not be quite enough to convince 30-somethings like myself to ditch FIFA 10 or Modern Warfare, but it seems a worthwhile aspiration.  On the other side, obtaining gold in the various challenges is ridiculously easy for even its intended younger audience, which only harms its chances of moving beyond the novelty tag that is typically strapped to anything EyeToy/PS Eye or Tamagotchi related.

Examples of the other types of activities you can enjoy with your virtual pet include directing him towards bowling pins, bouncing up and down on a trampoline, running and jumping on a treadmill whenever you clap your hands or simply playing a good old game of Snap.  There's a considerable amount of variety on offer, although hopefully SCEE London will continue to offer more post-release as once the 15-day Programme is finished the appeal dwindles quite quickly.

In a nod towards LittleBigPlanet you'll unlock a wide variety of costumes by completing objectives.  The problem with this is that, unlike Sackboy, dressing up your pet in clothes is both disturbing and just morally wrong - besides the little critter always looks cuter in just his fur, which can be trimmed, turned into dreadlocks and coloured, if you so wish.  Personally the whole Styling thing is a little tasteless and failed to offer the sense of reward or progress that completing challenges should provide.  Earning another shirt or hat didn't offer the incentive to continue playing, although perhaps a younger audience could possibly find it a little more appealing.

EyePet is smattered with the clever touches we've come to expect from SCEE.  Stroking the pet is nicely portrayed by his reactions and that of his fur reacting; it's quite convincing seeing as there's nothing actually there and back in the real world you probably look pretty pathetic stroking nothing but thin air!  Further evidence of such ingenuity includes the little videos that you can save, which appear in dream bubbles whenever your pet takes a nap.  Such little nuances elevate the overall game, but unfortunately it's not enough to convince us that it's all just a bizarre blend of a virtual pet and a mini-game compilation.