GC '07: EyeToy Play Astro Zoo Hands-On Preview

LEIPZIG, Germany--We thought Sony's EyeToy series might have taken a bit of a break, but it seems like the latest entry is set to continue the name on the PlayStation 2. Strangely, the latest title sees you taking the role of a farmer on an interstellar zoo, and will be released in the UK and Europe in November. The game was given its premier at this year's Leipzig Games Convention, and we wasted no time in rounding up some animals in the name of GameSpot.

Playing on the PlayStation 2 with the smaller, silver EyeToy camera, we were able to jump into a few of the different minigames that the full game will offer. Being an EyeToy Play title, the focus here is on quick, minute-long games that can be played without much explanation. The first game was a sheep-shearing exercise, in which you have to guide small helmet-wearing sheep into the shearing machine and relieve them of their wool. This meant smacking the sheep around with our hands until they bounced precisely into one spot, and then spinning them around quickly in the machine so they could be sheared.

It was difficult to tell exactly what animals featured in the second game we were playing. A number of them would fall down the screen, and it was our job to raise them up to the top of the screen by waving our hands in an upwards direction. The third game made about as much sense as its predecessor, in that snails flying across the screen left trails that we had to clean from the windows. This was fairly easy when the onscreen image was the right way up, but the game continued to flip the image in a variety of directions to make coordination increasingly difficult.

EyeToy Play Astro Zoo seems as eclectic as any other entry in the series, and while none of the games that we played at Leipzig were amazingly exciting, it's likely that there will be a few gems in the full collection. The game is set for release in November, so we should be able to bring you more details in the not-too-distant future.