E3 2004: Sega SuperStars Hands-Off

How did Sega's SuperStars fare at E3? Find out in our full hands-off playtest...

Sega SuperStars is the all-new EyeToy game for the PS2. It's set to offer between 12 and 15 mini-games, featuring classic Sega characters and games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Samba de Amigo, The House of the Dead and Virtua Fighter.

Stephanie Conrad, our E3 babe of the show, was on hand to demonstrate the mini-games. First up was some old Sega duffer known as Sonic the Hedgehog, in a mini-game is based on the bonus stage in Sonic 2. Sonic is running through a tunnel, and moving your arms around causes Sonic to run in the needed direction.

Just like in the classic bonus stages, the tunnel is scattered with rings and mines, you must collect as many rings as possible while avoiding the mines. Also scattered around the tunnel are the seven Chaos Emeralds - collecting all seven emeralds will give you a special surprise. The game felt quite different from the existing games currently available on the EyeToy.

House of the Dead, on the other hand was very similar to Kung Foo from the EyeToy: Play package, where players had to punch their enemies in order to kill them. Getting hit, or hitting a civilian loses you a life - and once you lose a life, it's game over!

The only noticeable difference between this and Kung Foo is that this contains the well know House of the Dead zombies, and further on in the game, certain enemies require multiple hits in order to kill them. Also enemies can also fall from the sky this time around, rather then just from your left or right. It looks cool too.

These were the only games playable at E3. The other confirmed games we know about, from the direct feed video footage you can view below, are a Virtua Fighter based game where you use your fists to fight Sega's famous digital combatants including Akira Yuki, and Samba De Amigo which seems to play similar to the original Dreamcast title, with the EyeToy seeing if your hands are in the right position, rather using the expensive (yet forever cool) maracas.

Hopefully we'll find out more about the other mini games soon - but we know that Sega is planning to include games based on Crazy Taxi, NiGHTS, Billy Hatcher, Virtua Striker, Super Monkey Ball, Space Channel 5 and Chu Chu Rocket. Stay tuned, Superstars!

Sharan Dev Jain
Contributor, Kikizo Games