EyeToy: Groove is the second game for Sony’s EyeToy USB video controller, but unlike EyeToy: Play it focuses on one type of game: dance rhythm. Groove is unique in the genre in that it is a dance rhythm game that actually forces you to dance. Dance pads only require you to time button presses with your feet so you can play quite effectively by doing your best Riverdance impression or by simply stomping around. Not so in Groove, which forces you to keep your arms moving and even keeps an eye on out to make sure that your body is moving as well.

In Groove you are placed in the middle of the screen and are surrounded by six hotspots placed in a circle around you at the edges of the screen. When the music starts icons move from the center of the screen towards the hotspots and you need to hit a hotspot when one of the icons passes directly over it. Hitting the hotspot at precisely the right moment will award you with a “perfect”, while missing an icon entirely will hurt your dance rating. Should your rating drop too low during a song, you will lose and the game will end.

Variety is added to the game by the timing and number of the icons. Sometimes they will come out in patterns and at other times in multiple directions designed to trip you up a little. There are also wide icons which give you a break by making for a large hotspot and star icons which you must follow with your hand as they jump from hotspot to hotspot before moving off screen. Finally, special icons will appear at time to time that require you to hold your hands in one spot and pose as the camera snaps a picture of you for browsing later.

In addition to the icon catching, the game occasionally goes into a freestyle mode in which you must move your body to the music as much as possible. While you’re freestyle grooving various special effects are added to the screen such as swirling colors that trail your limbs as they move. The game also watches your general body motion while you’re hitting the icons on the hotspots and factors this into your final rating at the end of the song.

The single player game has you select from one of the two dozen or so songs available and then play to the music. Unfortunately the tracks seem to run a little on the short side and there is no way to string the songs together into a longer session. You can try to best your score and then replay the same track or back out and select a new one, but in either case there is a little too much menu navigation and not enough dancing which can make single player sessions feel disjointed.

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