Review: EyePet (PS3)

Posted on 11. Nov, 2009 by Mark Cullinane in Featured, PS3, Reviews

No Added Sugar’s Rules of Good Game Design states- in pretty explicit terms I might add- that if you’re going to force a player to diligently set up a room’s lighting to exacting standards before play, then force him or her to spend the entire play session on their hands and knees, the resulting gaming session thereafter is going to have to be pretty damn good.

And whilst EyePet, Sony’s camera-centric answer to the virtual pet behemoth that is Nintendogs, certainly has its merits, there are just too many technological roadblocks that caused too much frustration- at least for this reviewer.

EyePet is, at least, certainly not short on gee-whiz moments. The titular pet, a slightly anthropomorphic monkey-like creature, is rendered and animated quite beautifully- watching it gambol around on your floor, interacting reasonably realistically with obstacles in its way, is initially a sight to behold. Later on, the game’s ability to bring your drawings to life by holding them up to the camera, is also a revelatory moment, and a real sign of how games could evolve in the future.

The initial ooh-ing and ahh-ing, however, gives way all too quickly to a realisation that the technology isn’t quite as sophisticated as you originally thought. Most, but not all, is the fault of the PlayStation Eye camera, a dissapointingly low-resolution webcam that comes packaged with the title.

The meat of EyePet’s gameplay comes by means of toys and gadgets that you use to interact with your pet. Using the ‘magic card’, a small piece of plastic that also comes packaged with the software that the camera locks on to, you can summon a variety of objects- from showers to hairdriers, trampolines to hand-held scanners, and a lot else besides.

I’m no expert on the technical challenges created by a game of this kind, but it is pretty apparent that the ‘magic card’ simply isn’t a strong enough target for the PlayStation Eye to reliably lock on to. Objects summoned by the magic card disappear for no good reason when you tilt them in a way that the camera doesn’t like.

But even when it does work, interacting with intangible objects- especially through the awkward reversed perspective effect caused by the camera- it becomes both tiring and tiresome.

Whilst I did find that my accuracy and reliability with the card did improve over time, it would still fail to register a movement or action for sometimes minutes on end, before inexplicably working a few moments later. One wonders if EyePet played with Sony’s motion-control ‘wand’ would probably make for a much better overall experience.

Where Nintendogs was smart and reserved in its use of its unconventional input method- voice commands- relying on recognition of your pre-recorded prompts rather than raw verbal intonations, EyePet suffers from overconfidence in the PlayStation Eye’s ability to accurately and consistently track movement.

You’ve got to feel sorry for developer SCEE London- to be fair, they’re victims too. Victims of the unfortunate (but probably necessary) need to have the camera pointing at the floor, thus creating the cramp-inducing playing conditions, as well as victims of the PlayStation Eye’s unfailing finickiness.

But apart from the technical shortcomings, there are some issues that the blame for which does rest squarely with SCEE London.

While we can forgive the bewildering loading times for loading seemingly basic objects and toys, the game’s real achilles heel comes from a lack of ambition in the game’s fundamental gameplay.

Structurally, the game disappoints. While a system of daily challenges (playing, washing, styling etc.) encourages regular play, it doesn’t take long before you’ve exhausted all the possibilities. And when this happens, there isn’t a whole lot more to do, except to repeat, ad infinitum. (Or purchase some new DLC items, of course.)

There are no punishments for mistreating your EyePet- and the rewards, usually in the form of new toys to play with your pet, dry up rapidly enough. The beauty of Tamagotchis and other hand-held virtual pets was that keeping them satisfied, and indeed alive, offered a genuine challenge. EyePet is just too friendly, too forgiving, and too inconsequential, leading to an utter lack of a sense of progression and a feeling that your pet is genuinely growing and developing. In short, EyePet is too content to be a flashy, tech demo-ish toy- and it is this, combined with the aforementioned control inconsistencies, that mean that EyePet is destined to be a footnote in gaming history.

The very patient, and the very young will get a kick out of EyePet. It is, undoubtedly, a slickly-produced, carefully-produced, and innovative title. But for the rest of us, it’s a sobering reminder that coming up with reliable and intuitive controls for camera-based games remains an immense challenge, and although EyePet probably does it with greater skill, verve and sheer likeability than anybody has previously, it’s not quite there- yet.

Sony provided a copy of EyePet for review purposes.