Sony follows up its brilliant and highly-approachable EyeToy: Play with EyeToy: Groove, a more fully fleshed-out version of the Play mini-game Beat Freak, and in so doing makes the game a little less brilliant and less approachable.
If you have not tried Sony’s EyeToy PS2 controller and the initial pack-in game Play, you’re denying yourself one of the greatest joys on the PS2. It is one of those video gaming experiences that anyone from age 3 to dead can find something in to enjoy. Groove uses the EyeToy controller, but I think many people are going to find it harder to have initial success with it and there is not as much variety to hook them.
Don’t get me wrong. Groove is going to be a very popular party game with certain crowds – namely those that like Dance Dance Revolution games. Groove is also mainly built as a multiplayer game, further testament to its party application. The one-player mode is called Solo Groove and really just serves as practice for getting your groove on and burning calories. There are a total of four Group Groove game options: Team Sync, Battle Sync, Battle Groove and Tournament. You can tell when you select Group Groove that this is where the meat of the game is. Team Sync allows two players to cooperate at the same time to achieve a high score. Battle Sync puts two people in play at once but as competitors. Battle Groove is like the solo mode but up to four players take turns to go for the high score. Tournament is a series of four mini-games for up to four players.
Playing Groove is all about rhythmic dancing. The rhythmically impaired need not apply. It is possible to go through the motions like an automaton, but you’ll never get the big scores without shaking your groove thang. The game ensures this by not only gauging how well the player is hitting the buttons at the six locations on the screen sides as the icons pass over them, but also monitors movement at the center of the screen and awards extra points for the effort being put into the boogie. There is more to Groove than simple note icons that must be hit to the beat as they reach one of the six button positions on the screen. Wave icons require the player to hit anywhere within the wave area between two buttons. Motion Quota icons require the player to keep the motion going on a given button until the icon disappears. Sweeping the hand over multiple buttons indicated by the Directional icon yields some big points. Pose has the player striking a pose for a quick snapshot that can later be used as evidence against you. (Yes, you really did look that goofy!) Randomly thrown in is a Freestyle period that allows the player to perform any moves he wants and then records them in a video for post-dancing embarrassment … uh, I mean, enjoyment. Fortunately the videos can’t be saved like the still photos can.
Groove offers a couple of extra modes too. Dance Move Maker allows players to create their own dance moves to the songs, save them to the memory card, and then use them in the solo mode. Chill Out Room lets the player listen to the music tracks with some tripped out visual effects or even watch a handful of videos. Photo Album is where you check out the photographic evidence of how silly you look while playing this game – up to 192 stills are possible with enough room on the memory card.
The songs are a great mix of new music and oldies, so anyone with the rhythm will probably find something he likes. I’m not going to list the 28 tracks (23 initially available and another five unlockable) but suffice to say that they cover the period from 1968 to 2003 and artists from Madonna to Kool & The Gang make an appearance.
Of course all the actual play controls work well enough. There would not be much of game if the EyeToy did not offer a satisfying experience during the actual dancing gameplay. Where I did find the controls to be less than satisfactory was in the selection interface. It often seemed I had to do a lot of excessive waving to get a selection to take. Other times, as I waved over an arrow button, the program would quickly skip over a couple of songs without stopping. It is a small thing, but frustrating.
Graphics are rather minimalist. After all, the player is the star of the show. What graphics the game has are adequate to the task, but this is not the game you’ll be pulling out to show off the graphical power of your console.
So is this a game you’ll want to own? If you consider yourself a hardcore gamer – probably not. One of my gaming buds went so far as to say these rhythm entertainment packages aren’t games at all. I would not go that far. There is a score and a way to compete with and do better than your opponent, so for my money that is a game. But still, Groove is not for the serious gamer that thinks you have to kill something for it to be a game. If you like to dance and want a great game for a party with people who don’t mind looking a little silly, EyeToy Groove is probably just up your alley.
