Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: My Street

Written by Matt Swider on March 03, 2003

Hands-On Preview: There's my house, and there's my treeЕand there's where I throwed up in the bushes!

On the hunt to introduce a wide array of differential online genre choices for their Network Adapter, Sony is like an unyielding force to bring gamer's everything they've got to offer. We've already experienced online games of death and mayhem, stealth and strategy, and ripping through dusty trails to win the race. Now Sony's going after their younger crowds for a change, with the intention in mind of waking remembrance to a long forgotten age of when kids did something more than just play video games -- where there was such a thing called "playing outside."

Similar to a modern day middle class neighborhood, My Street (the game, not my actual street) bears semblance to a block of rowdy children who have nothing better to do in their young lives than to challenge you and one another to a set of mini-game marathons. My Street plays closely to Nintendo's own Mario Party franchise in the same sense, being a collaboration of online or off mini-games you can match with against four friends or the computer. Unfortunately, the demo is neither online ready nor does it feature any playable mini-games outside of dodgeball or marbles.

To play through either of the two preset games however, the step-by-step procedure is coming along a tad annoying. The idea of the game will be to chase after neighborhood kids with a randomly generated character until they're eventually caught up with. From there, it is then that they ask if you'd like to enter a round of mini-game duel, like for example, a farm girl opts for a chicken roundup where an islander boy offers to play volleyball. Despite being disappointed by the lack of mini-game options available in the demo, the chasing bit in itself wasn't what I'd call much fun, given that the game's non-playable characters hardly ever gave me a chance to catch up with them.

Once inside the barriers of either of the mini-games, that's where the polish of the game starts to set in. My Street's versions of dodgeball and marbles are about as identical to real life's measurements as they come, except for a few differences. Both the mini-games are placed on a 2D/3D playing field that within each abide by their own rules. While dodgeball is the closer of the two in being related to what you already know of the game (with the game staged on a school gym flooring), the object in marbles is to use your colored ball to drag a smaller set of balls with the same color using a magnetic force towards the goal line atop of the table. Either game isn't really all that hard to get into (you can lock on to others, catch the ball, dodge the ball, and even throw the ball in dodgeball; rolling your large marble around, collecting power-ups, knocking other marbles off the table with speed boosts, and dragging your little balls with the X button is the basis in the game of marbles) with a list of instructions built right into the start menu. And having ability to set your own difficulty, number of matches, or number of players in whatever game it is you can select, My Street should be able to provide enough competitive interface whether you're vying against the computer itself or another human opponent (on or offline via the multi-tap).

Color is the world you'd come to expect in My Street. Color is what gives the characters their life, their meaning, their existence. Pretty much everything about the game so far is naturally coming into shape that way -- with color in mind. The neighborhood for instance is placed around a tiny street block. With a grassy park area in the center, variable homes line the neighborhood's circling sidewalk, each with their own distinctive quality. A home with a scientific garage completes the look for the science whiz kid; a racing complex design is fitted for the mechanical kid; and every other kid has their own suitable aspect that speaks for them from living quarters to the clothing wear.

Albeit nice looking, the overall visual state of the game is coming along plainly simple. Outside in the neighborhood backdrop, the houses, the trees, the flowing brook, and the children aren't constructed with intentional magnificence towards details. More so, there isn't that much going on to gander at in the mini-games. But like I was saying, the graphics aren't so bad you'd imprison yourself in a foreign country. In fact, My Street is equipped with decent texturing across grassy grounds and gravel road, next to what seems to be the high point attraction of the game so far, the animations. Before the game even starts, a short footage reel of Street's children dancing in motion to the opening song gives the game great effect matched with the mini-game insides where like in marbles, the balls roll around and smack without fail, and in dodgeball the kids bombarded with the red ball, fall, and get right back up with stars circling their heads.

Cheeriness persists within the My Street experience, not only in visual splendor, but also in its line of music and other sound aspects. The music for starters isn't much. Basically a small selection of radiant tunes all around, the music so far isn't the best or the worst -- it'll just be there. It's sad to see it sometimes, but My Street will be installed with the same typecasting method you'd expect from its line of voice acting. Each kid around the neighborhood is suited up with a personified style. That leads to the stereotypical setting that plagues games such as so: a farm girl accent for a farm girl, a geeky accent for the nerd with glasses, a tougher accent for the husky bully, and so forth. I'm just hoping Sony still envisions room for improvement. What will stick out the most though will probably be the audio effects, which aren't half bad actually. Running, walking, water flowing, being smacked by a dodgeball; each noise will be heard spot on.