The Wiimote and Xbox Live Vision Camera may have muscled in on the "gesticulation gaming" craze in recent times, but Sony and their EyeToy development team at SCE Studios London are out to prove that they're not about to give up on the flail-em-up genre just yet, with the release of two new EyeToy Play titles for PlayStation 2, due out this Christmas.

Perhaps taking the lead from current arm-waving kings Nintendo, the focus this time around is on peripherals, with each game arriving bundled with garish accessories designed to take advantage of the software's new colour-tracking technology, and on breadth of appeal, with a game for each end of the gender spectrum.

For the ladies, there's EyeToy Play: PomPom Party, a rose-tinted cheerleading jaunt that will see players shake, pose and chant their way through about 25 perky routines with the help of authentic, fluffy pom-poms, colour-coded to differentiate between left and right hand movements. In true Samba de Amigo style, the quality of your booty-shaking will be accordingly accompanied by reactive, interactive onscreen frivolity.

On the manlier side of things, meanwhile, there's EyeToy Play: Hero, a colourful medieval challenge billed as EyeToy's first plot-driven adventure. Utilising a pseudo-first-person perspective, players take green chunky felt sword in hand and battle through story-based stages that encompass all the traditional obstacles faced by yon lofty ancient knights of yore, such as black knights, slacker dragons and cartoon chickens.

It's all daffy, simplistic stuff, but it's also good clean fun, and a testament to the PS2's continuing ability to keep on trucking even in the face of newer, shiner competition. And you can stab chickens.

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