To all the families, to all the gamers, and to all the families with gamers - Happy Thanksgiving from Game Apparent!

Sony seems to have wished PS3 owners with the PSEye a Happy Thanksgiving as well. Two new titles appeared Tuesday of this week just in time for your holiday gathering. Both are kid-friendly too!

The first is Aquatopia and I would describe it as an electronic fish tank. It’s very pretty and you don’t have to worry about cleaning the water! The Eye makes it look as though you can see your own reflection in the tank. Many of the fish are attracted to movement so when you move your hand, some fish will follow it. Also, moving your fingers at the water’s surface feeds the fish.

 It may be a simple diversion, but at $1.99 USD it’s hard to beat. Also, it might give the kids something interesting to do while you’re dealing with the after effects of the turkey and it’s tryptophan. (Yes, I know that the effects of tryptophan within turkey are exaggerated, but for whatever reason, we’re always exhausted.)

The second download is a little more ($4.99 USD), but it offers a more traditional game experience. It’s called Operation: Creature Featureand it’s a lot like Lemmings with an Eye interface. You basically guide these little creatures with your hands in order to get them out of harms way. Each level poses new challenges. It’s very simple to learn and it poses enough of a challenge that young and old will find some entertainment value.

I know that we have much for which to be thankful and I hope that you all do too. Take care and enjoy your families!

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Since the early days of the original PlayStation, the developer Naughty Dog has created some engaging virtual worlds. They began with the Crash Bandicoot titles (ESRB “E”) and continued on the PlayStation 2 with the Jak and Daxter series (ESRB “E” and “T”). Though the original Jak and Daxter followed the Crash Bandicoot lead as a kid-friendly 3D platformer, Jak II started to become darker. It was at this point that Naughty Dog began creating “T” titles. They are excellent games and well worth playing, but not as kid friendly as the original cartoon antics of a certain bandicoot.

Their latest game is as much of a leap in technology and presentation from the Jak and Daxter trilogy as Jak was from Crash. It is called Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and it’s an adventure game in the vein of the Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider franchises. What appears to set this apart is the depth of the characters, the story, and the level of detail. In their previous productions, Naughty Dog took pride in painstakingly keyframing all of the animation. Though this makes for exceptionally fluid motion, it is better suited to stylized characters and not realistic human motion. For Uncharted they decided to start with motion capture to portray natural movement of the human characters. Then they refined this information be supplimenting it with traditional animation to create a more organic realism for the characters than motion capture could handle alone. This was an incredible undertaking considering that there is over an hour of these storytelling cinematics in the game.

In addition to the impressive cut-scenes, the in-game animation is stunning. Your onscreen persona, Nathan Drake, moves very naturally whether he is walking, running, jumping, or climbing through the environment. The control appears to be spot on as well, which is expected from a Naughty Dog title. Their titles are known for consistantly good gameplay and fun factor.

As of this week, the game’s demo is available free online at the PlayStation Store (North America). Feel free to download it and decide for yourself if it lives up to the hype. It is rated “T” and does include quite a bit of gun play. I would not call it brutal, nor is the hero of the title killing for any reason other than self-defense. Yet, the player is required to shoot quite a few of the “bad guys” throughout the game.

For more information about Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, visit the game’s official website here. For more background about the previous Naughty Dog titles and about the people behind the scenes, you can find their official website here.

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Next week, on October 23rd, Sony will be releasing their next generation camera for the PlayStation 3 called the PlayStationEye. You can read their original press release here, or view the current product description here.

Sony’s original console camera for the PlayStation 2 was called the EyeToy. It was a USB camera that enabled the player to view him/herself on the screen during gameplay. Many titles took advantage of this and were created around the technology including the Play series as well as Antigrav, Groove, Kinetic, and Sega Super Stars.  Though the specs state that it has a resolution of 640×480, this is the maximum capability of its pixel array and can only be used for stills. It normally runs at 320×240.

In comparison, the Eye functions at a resolution of 640×380 @ 60fps. (Though this isn’t quite DVD quality, it’s much better than VHS.) The camera will also be able to run at twice the speed at a lower resolution in order to capture motion more fluidly for game interaction. The camera is also designed to function well in low light situations (an issue that limited the usability of the original EyeToy). It also boasts a 4-microphone array to help better isolate sound from background noise. This will allow players to communicate with others without resorting to headsets (This same technology is used in dedicated video conferencing hardware that costs $5000 and up!)

This device will enable users to capture their own video and edit it with a free downloadable application from the PlayStation Network called EyeCreate. It can also be used as a video conferencing device which can communicate with up to 6 people at once. And for those who own a PS3 to play games, there will be titles for the Eye as well including The Eye of Judgment and the Trials of Topoq.

If for no other reason, I find the Internet-based videophone aspect of this enticing. If Wil Wheaton was pleased to keep in touch with his kid at college through Xbox Live and a headset, I wonder what he would say about some facetime (without long distance charges). I plan to be getting one of these. Who knows, maybe I’ll be seeing you soon?

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