| Eye Toy: Play 2 review |
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Behind the stubborn doors, shrink-wrapped homogeny and cardboard statues of your high street retailer lies many a nugget of mainstream industry. But it’s behind the counter – that forum for the ejaculation of gaming gobbledygook – that the true bastards of popular gaming reside…
Peripherals.
These myopic lightguns, planet-sized controllers and functionally ambiguous hulks of see-through plastic form a grotesque pyre, just begging to be burned. Like some Flavian arsenal, they’d be better suited to bludgeoning heads than facilitating the world of video games. High above, from the haven of the big-seller shelves, the Eye Toy dangles precariously. Last year's uncannily engineered, inventive expansion of the man-machine interface is seemingly losing its grip. This, we think to ourselves, should not be happening.
But it is happening. Sony’s prodigal son – well into its second year – still lacks the words to properly express itself. It remains a party graced with succulent but small aperitifs, hosted by bankable gaming heroes and one-note comedy characters. So now, as it embellishes its stunted vocabulary of novelty games with a sequel to last year’s Play, the question must be asked: can Play 2 rekindle faith in the future of Eye Toy?
The answer, funnily enough, is an indirect yes.
You see, Play 2 actually proves to be the very things we assume it not to be. It’s innovative, progressive and technically surprising, in spite of its somewhat limited remit.
The game boasts precisely one layer of depth more than its predecessor, which stands as a layer more than we expect of both this series and its entire genre. Every mini-game in Play 2 has its own hierarchy of difficulties, levels and, in some cases, bosses. Ironically, by skewing our presumptions as to what a ‘mini-game’ should be, they’ve evolved to become the truest possible interpretation of term. As an extension of longevity, this is only partially successful; as an enterprise in elementary game design, however, it’s commendable. The problem with the approach is that party games derive their appeal not from length but from novelty. When the novelty is gone, the game is dead. Once you’ve gotten over the improbable thrill of chopping an onion with your hand, being passed a carrot hardly relights the flame.
Luckily then, this is a game that truly does burn twice as bright. While the UK typically develops very cheap and nasty party games, Play 2 is entirely delightful and hilariously funny. It’s smaller than Mario Party and Bishi Bashi Special yet revels in production values far in excess of both. In its exploration of the Eye Toy itself, it provides a healthy cross-section of twelve games that frequently evoke astonishing displays of the device’s functionality. Take Home Run, for instance, a baseball game similar to that found in another, far less impressive, Eye Toy title – Konami’s U-Move Super Sports. With an umbrella (or other tubular object such as a stick or severed arm) in hand, the player enjoys an innings of wildly enacted batting and downright embarrassing running (on the spot, of course). So involving is the level of interaction here that, without doubt, at least one electronics retailer will soon have a TV returned to them with some form of improvised rounders bat protruding from the screen. Like almost all of the games here, there are enough spin-offs from the central theme in this one example to eclipse our very notion of the mini-game. Though this remains novelty – basic and unassuming – it’s novelty of the absolute highest calibre.
Better still, it’s difficult to say which of Play 2’s diversions is the most enjoyable. With their slow-motion replays and special moves, both Knock Out and Table Tennis are hugely entertaining and, above all, agonisingly funny to watch. Elsewhere, though, there’s as much frantic arcade challenge in Mr. Chef (replete with burger-building trials and culinary stand-offs) as there is compulsive replay value in Monkey Bars and Bubble Pop (puzzle games, of sorts). This isn’t to say that there aren’t weak spots; Kung Fu has only moderately evolved from last time while Goal Attack is simply weak. At the very least, though, this will be the most distracting physical workout you’ve ever had; the funny bone, particularly, being exercised harder than doctors recommend.
Rounding off the list of games is Air Guitar (you will look stupid), DIY (a tour de force of handyman challenges), Cameo Games (mental), Drummin’ (basic) and Secret Agent (an intriguing exercise in avoiding detection through intermittent bouts of movement). Some of these games, interestingly, can accommodate up to four players to surprisingly competent effect. Similar gems of inspiration and experimentation are scattered throughout; the ‘SpyToy’ technology used by Secret Agent, for example, can be also be used as a quite functional motion detector. Impressively, the expanded tree of every individual game and variant in Play 2 would reveal over eighty of them.
This is a game with a refreshingly precise definition of ‘fun’. That experience, it understands, isn’t automatically triggered by juvenile, stupid or hyperactive behaviour. Providing someone with the opportunity to make a complete ass of themselves is neither difficult nor clever – most people manage it without any assistance whatsoever. Here, in contrast, is an experience so enjoyable that monstrous humiliation becomes genuine pleasure. ‘Fun’, in truth, is the momentary disarming of one’s anxieties and cumbersome self-image – freedom from yourself, so to speak. Though the dose is still small, this freedom runs through the veins of Play 2.
This is, ultimately, one of those games that represent a great deal more than they actually are. Though it’s riotous fun and a near-masterpiece of ‘party’ gaming, it’s also a benchmark that sends mixed messages about the future. Will Eye Toy ever betray its name and become more than just a light-dependent novelty?
Perhaps, considering just how accomplished this particular diversion is, we can save these concerns temporarily. When we look at Anti Grav – the more ambitious Eye Toy game from the makers of FreQuency - perhaps then a more telling judgement can be made. Until that time, just get some bloody exercise and enjoy the lunacy – the brilliance – of Eye Toy Play 2. |
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System: Sony PlayStation 2
Genre: Party
Developer: Studio London
Publisher: Sony
Players: 1-4
Version: European
Reviewed: Jan 2004
Writer: Duncan Harris
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Pros:
- relentlessly innovative
- an impressive new interpretation of the 'mini-game'
- dangerously enjoyable while it lasts
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Cons:
- the novelty doesn't last forever
- the usual light-dependency issues apply
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