EyeToy Enabling 1:1-Tracking Sword Game For PlayStation

Author	Hugo Jobling
Published	15th Aug 2008

EyeToy Enabling 1:1-Tracking Sword Game For PlayStation

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The Edinburgh Interactive Festival may not have the notoriety of E3 or Leipzig, but it may just have seen one of the more exciting announcements of this year. According to slides snapped by gaming site DarkZero, a forthcoming game called EyeToy Play: Hero will support 1:1 motion tracking of a sword input, rather like that boasted by Wii Motion Plus - although using different tracking methods.

Launching on the PlayStation 2 sometime this year, the game uses a coloured toy sword to allow the 1:1 position mapping. The camera's sensor simply translates green input sword's location onto the in-game counterpart -presumably you can't wear bright green t-shirts at the same time as playing, then. It's arguably a less technically impressive achievement than the gyroscopic sensors used by the Wii, and is limited to a 2D plain, but the effect should be almost identical otherwise.

Within the game a floating, glowing (lightsaber anyone?) representation of the toy sword held by the player is displayed on the screen. Because the input is tracked based on colour, rather than motion, actions like blocking by holding the sword in a blocking position are possible.

Personally I think waving a fluorescent green foam sword around is likely to be fun enough on its own, so the addition of some innovative gameplay can only be a good thing.