PlayStation Move

EyePet

Later this year, fans of the original EyePet will be able to throw away that magic card it comes with. Or will they? Technical director Mark Lintott isn't "at liberty to say" whether a patch is planned to make the original playable with the Move controller, or whether an entirely new game is being prepared for release. At least he's letting me have a play with what's on show today, however.

It's extremely similar to the version in the shops now. You get to care for and play with a weird virtual cat-monkey thing, who responds to your movements. "You've still got the same hand interactions. It's just that whenever we used the magic card, we're now using the PlayStation Move," explains Lintott.

So, for example, I can hold the Move controller like a showerhead to wash the EyePet's fur. I can tilt it and twist it in any direction and the on-screen showerhead responds exactly. This new level of dexterity makes the game more suitable for younger kids, according to Lintott.

"If you played the original version, there was a lot of problems with twisting," he admits. "Especially with small children, when they moved their arms to the side of the screen, the card turned away quite often. This is much more usable."

That aside, it's hard to say whether the Move controller greatly enhances the EyePet experience. In one regard, it makes it a little less magical. In the original game, you can draw a real life picture using a pad and pen and the EyePet will copy it with a virtual crayon. In the Move-enabled version, you draw the picture on the screen using the controller. Watching an image come to virtual life just isn't quite as exciting when the image is virtual anyway. Lintott promises that new features we aren't being shown today are in development, however, so once again it's too early to judge.

TV SuperStars

This game is being developed by Sony Cambridge, as lead designer Jon Ingold informs me. It wasn't shown during the press conference, so to begin with, what is TV SuperStars?

"It's a casual game for social and family audiences," Ingold says. "The idea is that you, your friends and family can become celebrities in the world of reality TV. It's a fun, accessible thing where you kind of get to be famous. And we're using the Move controller to make something that anyone can pick up and play, so there's no barrier to entry."

The first step on the road to fame is taking a picture of your face using the PlayStation Eye. This then appears on the head of your in-game avatar, so it looks just like you. You can choose your body type from a range of elements and dress your avatar up in different clothes.

"As you become more famous you'll see yourself appearing in adverts, on billboards, in glossy magazines, attending celebrity parties... So it's about tapping into that kind of celebrity culture in a computer game, which I don't think has ever been done before," Ingold says.

Do you get to see pictures your husband took of himself in his pants on the cover of The Sun? "This is a game for a family audience, so we have to be careful about including any material which won't go down so well if the avatar isn't a kid. We've gone for cheeky British humour rather than Chris Morris-style satire." Shame.

Today Lintott is showing off Frockstar, one of several TV programmes featured in the game. Others, he says, include a cooking show hosted by a gangster rapper chef, and a disastrous DIY show where everything goes horribly wrong. But Frockstar is all about fashion. You can use the Move controller to dress your avatar up in different outfits and apply make-up, for example.

So far, so Wii. But Lintott shows us a dancing mini-game which is a bit different to the likes of Just Dance. Instead of fast, jerky movements, you're instructed to do sweeping movements - moving your arms in slow circles, for instance.

"One thing I found playing dance games a while back was that they hurt to play," says Ingold. "I wanted to make something cooler and more voguey, so the creative director and I sat down and looked at what this device could do." The end result is certainly a game which makes you look more graceful and less silly than Just Dance, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your perspective.

Do well in the mini-games and your photo could appear on a mock Heat cover, as we're shown today. The images of other players are stored on the hard drive and they will appear in a range of media too, so you might find yourself starring in an advert with your Mum as an extra. A bit like the way in which your Miis populate games such as Wii Fit, then. "I suppose so, I hadn't really thought about that, honest," says Ingold. "What I like about this is, it's not a Mii - it is me."