A Great Lens, Lidless, Wreathed In Plastic

Sony's sequel to the venerable PS2 EyeToy is the PLAYSTATION®Eye – a brand name so overbearing in it's use of screaming caps that I shall refer to it simply as the Eye from this point on. Sony has always pitched a good game with their research into video-based physical-motion gaming – the EyeToy bundled software was a big hit late in the PS2's lifecycle, particularly in Europe. The fact that the Eye has debuted in tandem with a more novel approach to the camera via the Eye of Judgment hybrid video/card game is telling. This is Sony hinting at a broader approach to use of the video peripheral that goes beyond body tracking alone.

(Full review after the jump.)

The Eye is a much more capable camera than its ancestor. It is still a relatively diminutive black Sony-looking widget, albeit one that ditches the original's boxy Swiss design and opts for a more traditional webcam sphere-on-foot approach. It also incorporates a surprisingly sophisticated microphone array that perches above the lens like a great sonic unibrow. On the left and right sides of the face are two LEDs, red and blue. Red tells you the camera is on. Blue tells you the camera could go on at any time, and never switches off. It's one of those peculiarly bright blue LEDs that I found somewhat distracting when I wasn't actually using the Eye. Consequently I found myself unplugging the thing when I was watching a movie, rather than have the LED blazing away in the near vicinity of the screen.

The camera is fairly light as well, which can lead to that annoying situation where the peripherals cord is heavier than the peripheral itself. The Eye comes with a generous length of cord, and if it's draping down the back of a wall unit then it tends to pull on the camera. The base is rubberized so this minimizes the problem, but sometimes you need to tweak things to get it pointed properly. If you have a fancypants flatscreen, as I do (straightens tie), you might also find that you cannot perch the thing safely on top of the television.

There is a single adjustment that can be made on the body of the Eye itself: the lens has two zoom positions. One is the default wide angle meant for body tracking, and another zooms the picture slightly and is meant for... zooming slightly. (FOV of 75º and 56º respectively, if you must know.) There is no on/off switch.

Technically speaking, the camera is capable of some interesting feats: it can record 640x480 video at 60 FPS, or 320x240 at 120 FPS. The microphone is a 4-capsule array which allows for software-based echo cancellation and noise suppression. It also records audio at 16bit/48Khz. Picture quality is what I would classify as 'fair'. It's not up to the level you would encounter in, say, the cameras built into new iMacs. What you get out of it largely depends on your lighting, which I will get into in a moment. The audio quality is exceptional, however. You can speak in a normal tone of voice from your couch and the Eye will do a surprisingly good job of capturing it. This bodes well for video chat sessions and the like. For in-game chat it's a little more complicated: since the Eye is likely situated near your TV, odds are it's not far from your speakers, either. This means that the Eye will pick up game sounds, which can cause problems. Most online games with voice support have a push-to-talk button which can help mitigate the issue – but if not, you'll be transmitting your own game sounds constantly (unless you use headphones, thus defeating the charm of being able to speak freely in the air, rather than use a headset).

Sony claims that the camera is engineered for low-light conditions, even going so far as to claim that the light cast from any moderately-sized television would be sufficient. This is, of course, unmitigated bullshit. The camera performs decently in some adverse lighting conditions, but turns horribly grainy and noisy in darker rooms. You need a lot of light to make proper use of the thing, and it is no different than practically any other camera in the world in this respect. When playing Eye-games this becomes readily apparent (which I will get to later). If you've got a dark couch behind you, and are wearing dark pants, it'll have trouble tracking you without enough light.

Having said all that...for $40 USD, you could do a lot worse.

The default software suite that is "included" with the Eye – by included they mean go download it from the PS Store – is called EyeCreate. This is a dumb, clunky little application that basically lets you confirm that the camera works properly. You can make clip recordings that are saved to the HDD in movie form (and can be transferred to the XMB). It has time lapse, some standard colour/distort effects, audio clip recording, and not much else.

The more interesting and immediate applications for the Eye are in using it for video chat, as well as certain retail games and PlayStation Network downloadable titles that Sony has developed.

Hardcore Full-on Six-Way... Chat

Within the Friends column of the XMB there is an option to Start New Chat. This will teleport you to a place strongly reminiscent of Sony's "white room" from the initial TV ads.

This supports up to six people, all of whom can be chatting with video which is pretty impressive actually. Quality will depend largely on the connections everyone has and the amount of light in each shot. If a user doesn't have a video camera connected then you will see their PSN icon instead. Users can mix audio-only chat participants with video-using ones in a room.

It's Like It's Watching Me

In disc-based retail games, the most significant video-enabled one is of course Eye of Judgment (gameplay video), which comes in a bundle with the Eye hardware as well as standalone. EoJ is essentially an augmented-reality collectible card game that relies entirely on the Eye for the videogame component. Players place their cards on a mat that has the Eye camera centred on it. The game software then recognizes the cards and renders crazy-fantastic battles in 3D which reflect the state of play. It's quite something to see, although it requires a lot of stuff as well as a willingness to don your mage's robe and kick your human dignity to the curb for a while, so utterly dorky is the entire enterprise. Hey, maybe Jim will give us a review! (See what I did there? That's right.)

Another recent example of big-title Eye support can also be found in Burnout Paradise. The game takes "photos" of you at various moments. For example when you crash another player online you get to pose for a photo that gets slapped momentarily on the victim's screen, a sort of video-taunt. Eye support in most titles tends to be frill or "bonus support", rather than an integral component.

As for PlayStation Network Eye titles, there are five of varying merit, nearly all of which seem to have been produced by Sony's London Studio and a company called PlayLogic. None of these are particularly expensive (or expansive), ranging from $2 to $5, although some of the non-games really ought to be free.

Mesmerize is a video effects toy. It is the flagship product in Sony's continuing domination of the stoner market. There are no goals in Mesmerize. There are only motion-based effects caused by waving your arms about. They charge a few dollars for this thing, which seems absurd; having said that, if you are stoned, maybe it seems like a much better idea. It should be noted that Sony have been releasing Mesmerize in "add-on packs" of effects, compounding the absurdity.

Operation Creature Feature is a motion-based Lemmings spinoff of sorts. Various googly-eyed critters called Blurbs seem to be enslaved in a dungeon mine in Dimension X and you are to help them escape by somehow superimposing your physicality and moving them around. It sounds weird, and it is, but highly intuitive in action. You simply "pick up" the Blurbs with your hands and try to drag them around the maze on-screen. The difficulty ramps up fast, and although there are only 5 levels with 5 "rooms" each, some of the later traps and puzzles require serious coordination. Because you lead the critters around by attracting them to moving parts of your body, this gives the game a Twister sort of aspect as you attempt to reach over and "grab" a Blurb without dislodging others with your torso or head. It's a fantastic party game since it's so accessible – when people see that all you need to do is reach into the screen to affect the game, it's not long before you have other players stepping in. The best technique I found was to use Jazz Hands. This one costs $5 and is a steal.

Aquatopia is a mildly interactive screensaver. You see some nice 3D fish in a nice 3D aquarium, and by waving your arms in front of the camera you can cause the water at the top of the tank to ripple a small amount. Of course it fails as an actual screensaver since you cannot have it trigger automatically. The fact that they charge money for this is ridiculous.

Tori-Emaki bills itself as an "innovative art experience", which you should read as... yup, screensaver. This is much more interesting than Aquatopia, however. The "experience" consists of controlling a flock of crows as they fly through a pseudo-3D painted Japanese landscape. The control works by body tracking as the others, but focuses on a single point of highest change – typically your hand. This causes a semitransparent balloon shape on the screen which the crows follow. The sensation is quite intriguing as it seems to have some rudimentary sense of depth; you don't just fly left and right but in and out of the picture. Along the way you can see various scenes depicted, and the colour filters change occasionally. Tori-Emaki is another "non-game" but the execution and style are just interesting enough to warrant the few dollars they're asking, if you're into quirky Japanese interactive art.

Trials of Topoq is a fairly interesting concept for a game. It's essentially Marble Madness using body tracking. The player is presented with a series of platforms that they must navigate a sphere around, avoiding traps and collecting bonuses. Each platform is a series of tiles onto which the player's video image is projected. Moving around in the picture causes the tiles to raise based on movement in the video. This allows the player to navigate the ball by creating hills and valleys around the sphere, causing it to roll. There's quite a bit of room for experimentation with interesting techniques here, much like Operation Creature Feature. Also well worth the $5.

I highly recommend you see these in motion to appreciate them, and you can in a Sony Eye PR trailer here.

Judging The Eye

Most of the value in the Eye right now is to be found in quirky party games like Topoq or Creature Feature, and using it to videochat with other PS3+Eye-owning friends for free. There are better cameras out there, all of which have worse price tags. It should be noted that the PS Eye is not the only video camera you can use: the PS3 claims to be compatible with any USB2 (UVC-class) camera. So if you have such a device already, you should plug it into your PS3 and see if it works. (Eye Create is a free download for everyone.) I don't know if this compatibility will extend to the games, which will largely expect an Eye camera, or stay relegated to XMB video chat.

Sony has demonstrated some interesting uses for the camera, and their R&D group continues to taunt us on their blog from time to time – check out this video of real-world objects being captured and animated via Eye.

Despite some misgivings about the picture quality and the limitations for in-game chat, I think the Eye's saving grace is that for what it is, it's simply inexpensive. The video specs thoroughly outclass the 360 Vision camera (which also lacks a mic) and it costs the same. The Eye plus 2 PSN games will run you $50 total. If you are interested in some cool video tech for the sheer geekiness of it, or you have little kids who might appreciate Operation Creature Feature, or you are fucked out of your mind on peyote and would enjoy seeing some additional trails added to your vision... it's not a bad investment.

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