The Trials of Topoq is a fairly simple premise - each level sets a ball at the top of a tall castle, and you have to safely guide the ball down a treacherous path, battling a time limit and picking up items along the way. You might be thinking Super Monkey Ball or Marble Madness, and you’re close, but unlike other games of this nature, you’re not directly controlling the ball or the environment - and you’re not using a controller.

The levels are constructed out of square zones, with the surface of each zone displaying a live feed from the PlayStation Eye. Any motion detected by the camera temporarily increases the height of the area beneath it - thus your means of moving the ball. Make sense? It will after watching this…

It’s a lot of fun - provided you’re comfortable with looking like a total dork - and there’s plenty of levels to keep you coming back should you get hooked. In a refreshing move, the game’s soundtrack is decidedly minimal - a strangely haunting piano that sets an interesting environment for the game, and won’t grate at you over time like the music from Super Stardust HD.

An online leaderboard would’ve been the icing on the cake for the game, but is sadly missing. The Trials of Topoq might not be as cheap as some of the other PlayStation Eye offerings, but it actually qualifies as a game rather than a pretty tech demo - and you just might fall in love with if you give it a chance.

The Trials of Topoq is currently available in the PlayStation Store for the UK (£3.49), Australia (AUD$8.45), and Europe (€4,99).

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This entry was posted by Tim Hanlon on Friday, November 2nd, 2007 at 6:11 am and is filed under Reviews, Playstation 3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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