What My Five-Year-Old Hatched

It is hard to get a five-year-old to review anything, much less a five-year-old who tells everyone he meets that he is a slimy alien (true story).

However, sitting him down in front of Sony’s EyePet and handing him a Move controller got a reaction – even if it was initially just the shock of seeing himself on GI’s big screen TV. I did this for several reasons: I was curious at how well Sony’s PlayStation Move works, and I wanted to freak out my son – but mainly, I wanted to see how EyePet connects with its target audience (as nerdy as I may be, I’m pretty sure I’m not it).

EyePet is exactly what you think it is, assuming you think it is an impressive technical demo for kids along the same lines as Nintendogs. For my son, it was all about being amazed. He just loved that he was able to draw something and watch it come to life as a working toy for his EyePet to play with. For me, I was impressed that the game was able to recognize the odd shapes he drew and turn them into something usable. For this, the EyePet is as much fun for parents as it is for the children. They get to be amused, and so do we.   
 
Throughout the EyePet experience, the child is guided and encouraged by a “scientist” (read: obvious theme park actor) to nurture the pet. At first, this assistant serves as a tutorial, but also adds extra layer of depth to the game. Not only is this “scientist” (read: easy paycheck) there to introduce and instruct, but also later to reward and respond. He’ll give out different outfits and other prizes, providing recognition for the progress you make. This helps make EyePet easy to enjoy and stay involved with, so long as your expectations are in line with your child’s attention span. There may be times when the game doesn’t work perfectly, or when your child would rather just run back in forth in front of the PlayStation Eye (true story).

Since our little experiment, I’ve talked to my son about the EyePet, and most of the things he remembers are tied to the fact that he was actually interacting with something “alive” on the television. This was not his first exposure to a video game – he has beaten Castle Crashers (I’m so proud) and has played all of the Mario and Sonic games on his DS (now I ‘m just spoiling him). The most impressive feat, and the reason I think it’s important to establish his experience, is that the EyePet was still able to capture his imagination. He was telling mommy about the creature that lives in the floor, but not what score he got in the trampoline mini-game. A hyper five-year-old who has played many video games still felt like this was something new and exciting, and has been talking about it a lot ever since.

In short bursts, like the ones we had, I can definitely see EyePet staying in the living room long enough to make it worth the purchase. In fact, I am sure there will be one in the Lowery home this fall.