Eye Pet and Friends

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List Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $14.29
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I'm 34 and I play console video games regularly. I would have no interest in playing this by myself, but it is a good game to play with children. My 4 year old loves it and it is a great introductory game for young kids (simple controls, easy to understand tasks).

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I just bought this for my kids! I have three children 11 year old son, 5 year old daughter, and a 2 year old daughter. They all LOVE this game! First I need to start off by saying the set up was a pain! Maybe because we were doing it at night and the lighting was not perfect? I'm not sure what the deal was but it took FOREVER for it to locate our floor. After we got past the section of finding the floor the rest was pretty easy. Some of the options were not easy to manage. For example my 5 year old wanted to change the pet's color fur, and some of the options or settings you would pick would not work. Then again some of those things could be that we are just not that used to this system yet. My 2 year old loved petting the animal with her hands, as she's not really old enough to use the controller. Both my 11 year old and 5 year old have been having fun playing games, drawing, dressing and changing the look of the eye pet. I got this game at first because there are not a lot of girl games for the PS3 and I thought this was one my daughter would love. It seems to be a good mix for all ages, and genders. Like I said my son has been having fun, he's been giving the pet a mohawk and such. I enjoyed playing the game myself, and thought it was good wholesome entertainment the family could enjoy. I would recommend this game!

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I just wanted to post a review to warn parents out there about this game. The concept looks great and you would think this is a great game for your kids. Well, I'm here to tell you not to get this game. You and your kids will end up frustrated and unhappy. First of all, the load times are horrendous. Just going from one play area to another can take 2 mins of loading. Sometimes the game will lock up during loading. The announcer can't be skipped and talks way too much. You end up just sitting waiting with your kids asking why the buttons don't work. Finally when you get to the interactive part, the camera is tricky to set up and the controls are very difficult for a kid. Even for an adult the controls are tedious at best. If your kids make the mistake of clicking the "eye pet store" button on the menu, prepare to be taken out of the game into the PS store where you can BUY silly add-ons that should have been included for free. The worst part is that if they hit this button, it will take a minimum of 5 mins to get back to playing due to the slow load times. Just be forewarned. My wife won't even turn this on for our kids because she gets too frustrated.

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We had the demo of EyePets for a months and the kids kept asking when we were purchasing the full game. For Christmas we purchased this newer version instead.

The kids were ecstatic and played it heavily for about 3 days. Then they played a couple times a week. Then they got bored. Now, they only play when friends are over and they want to show it off. Otherwise, they are much more interested in games with more creativity options (LBP), or games with more goals and rewards. This games delivers on being unique and interactive, and it can definitely be fun to play with the animal for a while. Unfortunately, it seems to fall short on things needed to keep the kids interested and coming back to play it over the long term.

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I've got four daughters -the oldest turns 12 this month, and the youngest is 5. After just a day of playing, they're entranced. I'm just wondering how long that will last.

Great intro video, and nice introduction to the pet, "hatching" it and playing games that require you to use your hands, not the Move controller. That was actually a source of frustration, as the kids wanted to use the controller (we just got them, so the new factor hasn't worn off yet) and had to be coaxed to just use their hands. Once they understood, though, they had a blast. Dress-up is a favorite.

I was frustrated by frequent and sometimes insanely long load times (five minutes, at least, once the two new pets were hatched and the initial interactions complete -shorter if there's just one new pet being hatched, and shorter between other activities, but still a good minute or two with some regularity, though at least it has humorous load screens). Every time you switch activities, there's a load screen, and with two players they seem to be longer than with one. We've also had it appear to lock up -no indication it was reading/writing to disk, and no response to controls (even the PS button), but that's only happened once. Still, the load times are a turnoff for a game geared towards kids with short attention spans.

I was also frustrated by the controls at times. For example, another review expressed problems with this too, so I know it's not just us: coloring your pet or its clothes are rather hit-or-miss. You can point the controller at the correct place on the screen, press the button...and nothing happens. Try ten times in a row, and maybe on the tenth try it will work. I can't figure out what the issue is, but persistence appears to be the key here. Some changes are previewed before you make them (color changes) and some apparently are not (hair style/length). The entire dress-up mechanism is likely to be a favorite (if LBP is any indication), yet it's very frustrating for kids, and I hope it's improved.

Worth mentioning is that to start with, you can see a ton of outfit pieces -but can't try them on. You have to "buy" them with in-game currency you "earn" by playing games. That means the kid who would be content to just play dress-up with her pet and never do anything else will be forced to go try to figure out how do other things with her pet to earn more coins so she can buy more clothes to play dress-up. It's a great strategy in an adult game to get you to explore various gameplay mechanics or options, but I'm not sure I'm fond of it here. I don't want my kids to abandon the game because they can't play with it the way they want unless they do things that don't feel fun. Really, the RPG "grind" isn't necessary in a kids game like this, is it?

And if you haven't tried the EyePet demo, you should try it before you buy. As in the demo, you have to put the camera very low to the floor (within 30 inches, I think they recommend) and tilt it all the way down. You then play on the floor. It would be easier, I think, to have a large coffee table and try to use that as your playing surface -or, get down and roll around on the floor with your kids (if your back can handle it!). That means you'll be moving your camera, as all other games recommend you have your camera immediately above or below your TV, and ours (like most, I assume) is more than 30 inches off the floor. Just be ready for it.

SUMMARY

A lot of fun, at least at first. Annoying glitches and load times cost it a star or two, but there's a lot of potential here.

We haven't had time to explore everything there's a fair amount of content here, much of which needs to be unlocked by earning in-game currency, so I can't evaluate it all until we play more. We played this New Year's Day 2012, so if you're reading this a few months later and I haven't followed up with an update, add a comment and I'll followup with some details on longevity.