Thee fourth in the multi-million selling EyeToy: Play series, EyeToy: Play Sports will center on, as the title suggests, sports mini-games. Unlike most EyeToy games, EyeToy: Play Sports features 101 mini-games, making it the biggest EyeToy title thus far.
The short, fast games include an archery challenge, in which you pull back a virtual bow, dodge ball, "Table Football", surfing, rafting, sumo wrestling, high dive, boxing, sky diving, tennis, and many, many more. The games are often only thirty seconds in length, lending themselves to frantic Wario Ware inspired play. the biggest difference being that all the moving about can be quit the workout.
another departure from other EyeToy Play games is the deep integration of teams. Players can form teams in many mini-games that include up to eight participants. While some mini-games are single-player, many have two or four people playing onscreen at one time, similar to the mechanics in EyeToy Grove. Other mini-games require teammates to "tag", or swap out, partners during the game.
In a Kuju press release, Studio Head Ed Daly had the following comments regarding EyeToy Play: Sports: "Alongside the studio's work on previous EyeToy games, SingStar Rocks, and other recent announcements, the Play Sports project underlines Kuju Brighton's commitment to lifestyle / social gaming, reaching out to parts of the market that other games can't reach." Being a personal fan of non-traditional gaming, I'll be the first to admit that the EyeToy games are some of the first to come out at any party, and they tend to go all night, much to the dismay of my neighbors.
EyeToy Play: Sports will be released late 2006 in Europe and is rumored to hit shelves in the U.S. early 2007. For those of you with the import bug, EyeToy was a much bigger hit overseas that in the U.S. and there are some great games available to ship over.
