Last year, EyePet was released in Australia and Europe, filling a hole in gamers' hearts with a lovable monkey-like creature that enjoyed being groomed and performing fancy tricks. You interacted with this fictional puff ball via the wonders of the EyeToy combined with a plastic card that created all sorts of magical objects in-game. Jealous American players could do nothing to satiate their own desires for a virtual plaything and were forced to pine away for EyePet's eventual release in their own country. That time will finally come later this year, but the months spent between its original release and its stateside debut will bring with it one major change: PlayStation Move support. You are no longer forced to interact with this mythical creature with a cold, uncaring card. That functionality has been swapped out for Sony's new Move controller, and we got a chance to try it out for ourselves.

Fictional, monkeylike creatures, like every other animal under the yellow sun, get dirty over time. Cruel as it may seem, it's just nature's way. In EyePet, you must groom your foul creature when its fur gets matted and gross, and we got a chance to douse it in life-giving water. By using the augmented reality feature present in many Move-enabled games, the controller we were holding in our hands magically changed to a shower nozzle onscreen when we selected the clean option. Unlike an ordinary housecat, the EyePet creature loves being bathed, closing its eyes as the water cascaded down his furry head. It even opened its mouth to have a drink, which is strange because hot water is anything but refreshing. The nozzle moved and swayed realistically as we twisted and contorted the controller.

Once he was wet, we had to dry our furry pal. We swapped out the water-gushing nozzle for a hair dryer and gave the furball the beauty-salon treatment. Once it was clean and fluffy, we were free to play around with a few non-cleaning instruments. We replaced our hair dryer with a bubble-making machine that forced our little creature through a rigorous muscle-building exercise. Even the best of us are not immune to the charm of bubbles, and the little monkey exhibited its love of floating spheres by leaping around the room, popping them with its razor-sharp nails. If we swung the Move slowly, we could create a huge bubble that could actually trap the little guy inside. Once it was situated in the bubble, we could cause it to rise high in the sky with a flick of our wrist, though it was unperturbed being imprisoned inside a watery shell.

Using the PlayStation Move, we could also write onscreen, and our pet would copy whatever we drew onto his personal pad of paper. There are different modes within this drawing section. You can always draw whatever you want, but your drawing is imbued with different properties depending on what mode you select. Car, plane, boat, balloon, and puppet are all available options, so no matter how lousy your drawing ability is, the game will mash your creation into a working airplane (for instance) that can be ridden by your adventurous pet. Once it's airborne, you can point at the screen to direct its flight, tapping the button to make the propeller spin or stop completely. Controls during this section are still being fine-tuned, but the monkey didn't seem to mind that he was part of a work-in-progress.

The last object we conjured was an X-ray device that let us see the insides of our trusting pet. Here, we could check its stomach to see if it was hungry, check it's brain to see its creativity, and check other organs to make sure it was happy and healthy. There are more surprises in store for EyePet fans later this year, but what we saw so far is every bit as adorable as it was last year, with more-precise controls. EyePet is due out this fall, though specifics have not yet been revealed.

Sony officially unveiled the PlayStation Move at an event in San Francisco this afternoon, and when the presentation was over, those of us in attendance were invited to check out some of the Move-compatible games. One of those games was Sony's answer to Nintendo's Wii Sports, which currently goes by the working title Sports Champions. It's not yet clear how many different sports will be featured in the game, but those that we know about include golf, archery, bocce ball, table tennis, beach volleyball, and gladiator duel. That last one doesn't necessarily seem like it belongs given that gladiators of this sort haven't been thought of as sportsmen in some time. Regardless, gladiator duel was the sport being shown, and we wasted no time entering the arena armed with a Move controller in each hand.

We're told that the Gladiator Duel mode will be playable with just one Move controller, but only the dual controller setup was shown at today's event. Calibrating the Move controllers was a quick and easy process that involved pointing one of them directly at the PlayStation Eye and then giving the game some idea of your body shape. This was done by outstretching an arm and then moving it back toward your waist. After a quick onscreen reminder to remain directly in front of the PlayStation Eye camera, we were dropped into the gladiator duel tutorial.

Taking control of the beefy-looking warrior named Kid D was easier than expected. All we had to do was move our right hand to swing his warhammer and, while holding down a button on the left controller, move our left hand to block with his shield. Both were very responsive, and although a few of the five hits we were required to land on our opponent (a young lady by the name of Samba) to progress didn't register the first time, we immediately felt comfortable with the setup and were eager to get into the fight proper.

Because we were using two of the regular Move controllers, there was no analog stick. Our combatant pursued Samba around the arena automatically, and though our opponent was swinging her sword quite regularly, most of her attacks were very easy to block and counter. For much of our two-round fight, all we had to do was perform the same moves that we wanted our character to perform onscreen, but there were a couple of occasions where other inputs were required. After stunning Samba with a couple of successive blows to her head, we were prompted to simultaneously perform an upward motion with both Move controllers to jump up in the air and then land an attack on the way down. Another onscreen prompt that appeared at the end of a short combo had us move our right hand sharply from left to right to perform a powerful combo finisher. Rolling on the ground after being knocked down also appears to involve a simultaneous movement of both controllers.

After defeating Samba, another opponent named Kenji (from a roster of 10 to 12 by the looks of things) entered the arena, but predictably there was a long line of event attendees waiting to play, and so we reluctantly handed our weapons over. Though it hasn't been officially confirmed, Sports Champions seems like an obvious choice for the pack-in game that Sony is promising to ship with PlayStation Move bundles this fall. We look forward to bringing you more information on the game and on everything Move-related in the coming months.

Earlier today at the 2010 Game Developers Conference, Sony announced the official name for its much-heralded motion controller: the PlayStation Move. Along with the announcement came a number of demos, which members of the press were able to play immediately following the presentation. One of these demos was Motion Fighters (working title), a one-on-one fighting game featuring two gritty-looking street brawlers. In the interest of science (the not-so-sweet kind), we grabbed two Moves and started swinging. Here's how it played out.

The streets of Motion Fighters are predominantly black and white, with a few splashes of color in the graffiti and, of course, blood spewing from your opponent's mouth. It should be noted that the game was in a pre-alpha state when we played it (20 percent complete, according to the screen), so the look and feel were far from final. That said, the brawlers were quite detailed and the environments set the right kind of back-alley atmosphere. Fighting as a muscular guy with a large dragon tattoo across his back, we took on a balding, leather-jacketed biker fellow with a mean scowl on his face. Punches landed with satisfying impact, and the aforementioned blood spurts served as gruesome rewards for particularly solid shots.

But landing a good punch is no easy task. A mere flick of the wrist isn't going to cut it here, so you have to really put some effort in and extend your arms. Straight punches register as jabs while curved blows register as hooks. Turning the Move sideways, lowering your fist, then thrusting upward executes an uppercut. All of the motions are pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Holding your arms together in front of your body will block, and leaning to avoid your opponent's strikes is as easy as leaning yourself. If you get caught leaning into a punch, be prepared to take extra damage. As you land blows on your opponent, a meter at the top of the screen will reflect how much punishment he is taking. Each blow increases the meter, though if you land a big one and then let your opponent recover, the bar will diminish slightly. This seems to reward hitting in quick combos and keeping the pressure on, which gives you more encouragement to batter your opponent silly.

If you are feeling particularly enthusiastic, you can unleash some dirty tactics to deal further punishment. If you get close to your opponent, you can grab him in a headlock by holding two buttons on the Move (the trigger and the action button, which is the big one right where your thumb rests) then swing your arm out like you are throwing a hook and pull it back. You can then proceed to uppercut him in the face or bring your elbow crashing down on his skull, but he is also free to take shots at you. You can also modify most punches to be elbow punches by holding a button when you strike, and swinging both Moves forward from your chest will deliver a nasty head-butt. When your damage meter reaches full strength, you can finish your opponent with a particularly gnarly finishing move, though we weren't able to see any in the build we played.

By requiring you to really put something into your punches and embracing its seedy street-fighting aesthetic, Motion Fighters looks to channel the raw, pugilistic satisfaction of beating the pulp out of a virtual somebody. We're looking forward to seeing how the controls are refined in future builds because it definitely felt like there was room to increase the controller's responsiveness to quicker combos. Still, the motion correspondence was pretty impressive, especially when dodging or landing a big haymaker. We'll have more on Motion Fighters in the coming months for all you fans of big hits and bloodied lips.

Tonight, Sony officially lifted the curtain on its PlayStation Move motion controller, and in doing so, it also lifted the curtain on a number of party games that will arrive in conjunction with the new peripheral. Aside from the new SOCOM, and a game in which you slug your way through back-alley brawls, most of these games seemed to be focused on a colorful, casual experience that the whole family would enjoy (provided grandma isn't the street-fighting type). Among these was TV SuperStars, a game in which you scan your face with the EyeToy to become a reality TV show contestant.

TV SuperStars features four different types of TV shows: a fashion show, an extreme Japanese game show, a cooking show, and a DIY show in which you make the rules. The ones we played were the fashion and game shows. We started by scanning our face into the game. You can give your character a neutral face, a happy face, or an angry glare, as well as tweak your hairstyle and body type. Then, you use the EyeToy microphone to record a catch phrase with which your character will gloat. We managed to create a character that looked almost unsettlingly similar to us. (There's nothing quite like seeing a virtual avatar of yourself angrily sneering at you the moment after you breathed life into it.)

The basic gist of the Japanese game show is to quickly cycle through a handful of frenetic challenges. One has you churning your arm in circles to run on a giant cylinder, another has you painting between the lines on a giant canvas where the paint rapidly changes colors, and the last has flinging yourself into the air and twisting the Move to contort your body in midair to match targets.

The fashion game had a bit more focus to it. You take to the stage and start dancing for the audience by matching onscreen gestures, as a sort of warm-up for the fashion show to come. Then you go backstage and use the Move to put together outfits for your contestant. After that, you apply makeup to yourself (we decided to go with a Joker from The Dark Knight look) and get back onstage. The character we made looked like a bit of a train wreck, but a funny train wreck nonetheless. With our newly decorated character, we did another motion-gesture dance routine to impress the audience. We may have even "vogued," but we're not too certain.

One thing we could tell about TV SuperStars is that the game is meant to be a light, easy-to-pick-up accompaniment to the Move controller--most likely one of the options that will come bundled with the starter pack. It doesn't appear to be a full-fledged retail game, but it worked well enough with what it set out to do. As for the Move hardware, we were surprised by the responsiveness of the device, and the build quality seemed pretty sturdy. Now, we'll just have to wait and see what other sorts of games come out to support it. Stay tuned. It's going to be an interesting few months leading up to the Move launch this fall.

It’s not too surprising that one of the first games Sony is showing off for the PlayStation Move is a rail shooter. But if visions of a run-of-the-mill forced march through a set path with enemies popping up at random times bore you to tears, you should know that The Shoot is actually pretty clever. The game takes the standard rail shooter archetype and dresses it up with a bit of story and interesting gameplay.

The game's premise is a play on its title, since you’ll be sent through different themed movie shoots. While the demo we played sent us through robot-infested subways and city streets, reps on hand noted that later levels will feature different locations and gameplay that will include some hand-to-hand combat. The two levels we played had us moving through a subway as well as a city street crawling with robots who need to be shot and assorted civilians you should avoid plugging full of holes.

The subway portion of the game felt like an old-school shooting gallery, with enemies and civilians popping out as you move through the level. While this was pretty basic at the start of the level, as you get further in, enemies become more sophisticated and split into smaller foes when shot or have shields you'll need to get around in order to take them out. Peppered throughout all the cannon fodder are civilians you'll need to avoid blasting--which is easier said than done once you get the robot shooting fever--but casualties are to be expected in this type of game.

The city street area mixed things up quite a bit more with a fight against a large robot with weak spots that has to be targeted as it hops around and throws debris at you. As the large bot takes more and more damage, you'll have to contend with more enemies that pop up to prevent you from targeting the weak points.

The Shoot's gameplay is in the vein of a light-gun shooter, with the Move controller serving as your gun. You'll fire your weapon by hitting the trigger on the underside of the controller, and from the look of things, you don't have to worry about reloading. There's some variety added to these core mechanics by a modest degree of motion that reflects where you're pointing. Though there isn't free movement, you can lean a bit to the left or right. In addition, you can collect different power-ups that you can trigger by aiming the controller at the top or bottom of the screen (or by physically moving). Overall, the Move controller worked fine, although it wasn't quite as responsive as we would have liked it to be (but it did feature some solid rumble effects). Reps on hand noted that what was on display was a work-in-progress and that there would likely be options to calibrate your reticle's movement to some degree in the final game.

Watch out--ghosts!

The Shoot's visuals were clean and had a decent number of effects. Given the game's borderline campy theme, we didn't expect to see any photo-realism on display and were satisfied by the art style. The environment featured a good amount of detail and a good helping of destructible objects. The game moved along at a steady clip and featured quite a few screen effects to help underscore the mayhem. Because of the press event's noisy setting, we couldn't make out much of the game's audio.

While a rail shooter isn't a stunning display of the PlayStation Move's capabilities, it's certainly a solid one. There's already some fun to be had in the single-player mode, so we expect the two-player mode will be fun as well. The Shoot is being developed by UK-based Cohort Studios, most recently known for Buzz Junior: Monster Rumble, and is due for release during the PlayStation Move's launch window. Look for more on the game in the coming months.