Gaming Talk

EyePet! How can you not love him? (her? it?) Admit it, you think it’s cute. Some people claim that it is ugly and “freaky looking” but I’m sure they are just trying to act all masculine.

When you first boot up EyePet you are greeted by a professor who, you will find, will guide you through setting up your room, hatching your egg (yeah, these things come from eggs) and showing you how to take care of your Pet. This information is more valuable than you would think, at first. You get taught how to feed, clean and entertain your pet before you are let loose and have to take good care of it yourself. The instructions you get are, obviously, very simple as it is aimed at the younger generation.

I look at this game as a game for gamers and for children, the ideal combination would be a gamer with a child. The children can spend ages selecting the perfect style for their pet but the gamer wont be bored with the variety of challenges available. It even adds that addictive element of medals. Quite simple really, the better you do, the shinier medal you get. As a gamer playing this, I instinctively went for the gold every time but, and I’m ashamed to say, some of those challenges are really hard. A good example is the bubble challenge in which you need to fill your room with bubbles. Doesn’t sound that hard right? Well with that pesky little critter running wild in your living room, popping all the bubbles it makes the challenge so much harder. I even found myself swinging my arms at my pet in frustration, but then it looked at me with those monkey-cat eyes and all my anger was gone.

On to the actual gameplay. You sit there, in front of your TV and camera with your pet. Much like the EyeToy games your movements affect what happens on-screen. If you gently caress your hand over the pet it will start to pur as you are stoking it. If you wiggle your fingers on the floor, it will pounce at you and if you wiggle your fingers in the air, your pet will jump. You also have a magic card, which is recognised by the camera and can become a number of things. A trampoline and a bubble monkey for toys. The card is also used for cleaning your pet, feeding your pet and checking your pet’s health. The possibilities are endless. Now the pet’s party trick, its artistic talent. Your pet, after a few pretty bad attempts, will be able to mimic your real life drawings on-screen. It is pretty impressive! When you unlock the magic crayon, things get really insane. You draw a car on paper then can drive the card on-screen. This ability also stretches to planes and spaceships. There also little things like a camera, which lets you capture the most memorable moments with your pet in a photo of a short video clip. You can change your pet’s style pretty vigorously and reminds me of LittleBigPlanet.

For me, this game is all about the challenges. Do some challenges to unlock new clothing or toys.  It is the medal system and unlockable that keep me interested in this game but I have one problem. Why does the professor have to interrupt you every so often to tell you that “EyePets can only have so much excitement for one day”? I mean, yes it is perfect for children when they should go to bed but they just want to “do one more challenge” but for a gamer, it gets quite annoying. Simple solution; quit then change the date on your PS3. Although quite annoying, it is the only way to play for more than 1 hour a day.

Overall this game is great! Worth picking up for £20 (Solus, £30 with the PlayStation Eye) especially if you have children who will love this game longer than I certainly will.