Eyedentify E3 2005 Preshow Report

Eyedentify is one of the few games from the Sony PS3 press conference that really hinted at some of the new peripherals for the system. From the name, you might be able to tell that the title makes use of the EyeToy, but it does it in some unique ways, if the video of the game is to be believed.

It's difficult to relate much of the plot of the game based on the minute-long clip, but it appears to follow the adventures of two sexy female intelligence agents/soldiers, under your command. That's right, your image will appear on the communications screen, and you'll apparently be able to "talk" to the girls to command and interact with them. Anyone who has fiddled around with previous games that relied on human speech recognition, or speech-recognition automated phone systems, for that matter, will likely recall that they were fairly frustrating experiences, so only time will tell whether the impressive interactions in Eyedentify are the result of some new technological breakthrough or are the result of judicious editing on the part of Sony. Hopefully the shipping version of the game, whenever it happens to appear, will feature some real artificial conversations, but we're not necessarily getting our hopes up.

What we can comment on are the graphics, and it's here that we're a little worried. When compared to some of the other games in the E3 2005 press conference footage, it has to be said that the Eyedentify graphics aren't quite as up to date. With the exception of a nice-looking swoop from a bird's-eye-view of a city down to the street level view where you spot your agents, much of the footage here wouldn't look out of place on a PlayStation 2, especially when you examine the models of the two female characters, which are relatively smooth but still feature some stiff hair effects and unimpressive modeling in the faces. It does seem to feature some impressive integration of the EyeToy video, though, as you can expect your ugly mug to appear on in-game monitors and virtual displays.

Whether or not Eyedentify is an actual full-fledged game or another tech demo for the Eyetoy is hard to say. Without more details on the gameplay and the length of the game, we can only speculate as to the form that Eyedentify will eventually take. We're hoping it winds up to be impressive, but it's up against some pretty stiff competition, judging from the rest of the Sony press conference footage.