Sony’s genius Eyetoy peripheral was well received at launch. The length and breadth of the country, you could find small crowds of folk bounding around at the demo-units that littered corners of many high street retailers. Since then, the idea seems to have lost much of its momentum, something exacerbated by the disappointing sales of Sony’s Eyetoy: Groove. Sega, however, have proved to be the saviours of this particular gimmick, with positive reports from those who have tried the demo of Sega Superstars showing at E3.
The gameplay of Sega Superstars is very much defined by the camera-based controls, but the individual mini-games are proving to be more sophisticated than those in Eyetoy: Play. Effectively, Sega are trying to make ‘proper’ games with stages, bosses, power-ups and all that malarkey. Taking advantage of their big name franchises, some of the Superstars involved are Sonic (obviously), House Of The Dead, Virtua Fighter, Samba De Amigo, Crazy Taxi, Monkey Ball, Chu Chu Rocket and even Space Channel 5 (which could well evolve into a game in its own right).
Sega have also confirmed that they are entertaining the idea of further Eyetoy-based titles. Although there have been no explicit suggestions, Sega’s Bemani franchises would be obvious candidates, and there had been talk of a Sega Sports title around the time of the Eyetoy launch. We’ll just have to wait and see.