PSEx: Sony catches our EyeToy

Sony's EyeToy is one of the more eccentric peripherals on display this year at ECTS, demonstrated exclusively inside the PlayStation Experience. Billed as something that would "revolutionise the way we play games", it boils down to what is essentially a webcam that plugs into the USB port on your PS2. Applications that are designed to utilise the technology then overlay graphics for the player to interact with in real-time. Drawing the crowds at the demo pods were three different titles; WishiWashi was a bizarre little game that puts you up against a friend to see who can wash the most windows with their sponge. Kung Foo was a simplistic 2D action game reminiscent of classic arcade titles like Shinobi and Double Dragon with players flinging their arms in the direction of ninja opponents advancing from beyond the screen boundaries. Finally we saw a rhythm-action game where the player punched on-screen speakers in time to music, which brought back painful memories of late night Samba de Amigo sessions that we'd really rather forget. The latter is probably the more obvious application for the EyeToy technology, but it's difficult to see where else developers could take it in order to revolutionise our experience. It seems to be a sure-fire hit with the kids though, so if your better half is complaining that you don't spend enough time with the family, this could be just the excuse you need to spend more time on your PS2. Word is that the EyeToy will ship with a compendium of 18 small titles to get you going, with more titles to follow.