Couple of posts back, I posted about how I am using the Eye Toy as a web cam. Well, I also mentioned the reason I now have two Eye Toys is that I desperately wanted to play the new Eye Toy game for the PS2, Antigrav. I encountered the game in a local Best Buy, and even after only about five minutes of playing with a poorly tuned Eye Toy that was pointing the wrong way, I was hooked. (Of course, it sucked that currently the only version of Antigrav shipping is the one bundled with an Eye Toy.)
I remember a while back coming home from spending a day at DisneyQuest with Natasha and we were both saying how much of a workout it was to play some of the games there, and how great it would be if you could have some kind of home version of the games, or at the very least, use DisneyQuest as a gym, with the games targeting specific muscle groups or types of workouts. As soon as I started playing this game, I realized that this was the first, nascent step in that direction.
Antigrav is a boarding game. Your in-game persona is flying a hovering skate/snowboard through several wildly imaginative aerial stunt tracks. You use the movement of your head, arms, and legs to control the movements of the onscreen boarder. When you need to jump, you jump. When you need to turn, you move your head in the direction you want to turn. To pull off wild stunts, you wave your arms in particular patterns. And after running through three heats of racing or doing stunts, you find you’ve had yourself a decent aerobic workout.
The game was designed by Harmonix, a company that had already garnered acclaim for their innovative music games Amplitude and Frequency. While not actually a music-based game like their earlier ones, Antigrav does boast some nice rock/techno riffs laid down by the band Apollo 440.
If you’ve got a PS2 and you’re tired of being a couch spud, go out and grab a copy of this game. Innovations like the Eye Toy and games like this are going to turn video game players into the fittest people around.
GapPage 