Its time to pull the EyeToy out from the cabinet it has been stood in since you bought it and had a blast at EyeToy: Play last year because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Yes, Christmas is coming, and games that “involve” the whole family are once again set to have the cash registers ringing in the run up to December 25th – and probably well through the January sales too. This latest offering from Sega, is a bit special though, since rather than your generic characters and games that made appearances in Play and titles such as U Move Super Sports, we’ve got genuine gaming superstars such as Sonic, Billy Hatcher and Ulala stepping up to get involved.
Immediately, it is plain to see that the game is all the better for it. Games based on the outstanding Samba De Amigo and Super Monkey Ball franchises can be found here, alongside such classics as Crazy Taxi, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Striker, Space Channel 5, Puyo Pop, NiGhts Into Dreams, Sonic the Hedgehog, The House of The Dead and Billy Hatcher. This immediately makes the game a more interesting proposition for the hardcore gamer, whilst not intimidating the casual buyer into cowering in a corner, rocking back and forth with their head on their knees.
What this also does is lend some of the best gameplay mechanics of recent years to the minigames that appear on Sega Superstars. A couple of the challenges are absolutely unplayable, such as the Crazy Taxi minigame that requires you to wave your arms in the air and shout to hail the speeding cab. But thankfully, the quality titles outweigh the bad apples considerably.
Also of note in Sega Superstars, is the accuracy of the EyeToy detection. In other titles, you could pretty much wave your arms about on the left hand side of the screen, and the enemies on the left would all be killed. Everything seemed a little “fuzzy” – as if you didn’t really need to possess any skill at all and even if you did, it wouldn’t make your score any better. This isn’t the case in Superstars, as the game detects the slightest movement, meaning that real skill pays off. Nowhere does this show more than in the Puyo Puyo based minigame, where you must use the upper part of your body to deflect the hundreds of falling Puyo (or should that be Puyos’) that filter down from the top of the screen. Obviously, splaying your arms to aim the little fellas into their correctly coloured pots is the aim of the game, but if you tilt your head, you can do insane things such as catch the puyo between your arm and your neck. In other compilations, they would have just bounced off, but in Sega Superstars, accuracy and control is the name of the game.
Other highlights include NiGhts Into Dreams, where you must throw your arms out as if you were flying and control the character as he flies through the airborne rings to form chains. The experience is much like the classic Saturn game itself, and given the excellence of the control system, you can accurately make twists and turns in the air with ease. A similar control system is in use with the Super Monkey Ball game, and also works to good effect.
All in all, Sega Superstars is a package that nods towards the Sega of old. Excellent gameplay is the order of the day here, and the classic franchises will make Dreamcast and Saturn fans teary-eyed just at the thought of them. This is the best EyeToy compilation to date, even beating Sony’s own EyeToy: Play to the post. Play 2 is in stores as we speak, but for now, Sega Superstars is the king of the photographic castle and is easily worth the cost of buying an EyeToy if you don’t already own one.
