Look and feel

Treat yourself to some fresh new PlayStation Network titles that aim to mesmerize you with art, sound, light and a whole new way to ski.

Tori Emaki

Creating beauty isn't easy, but that's exactly what you're able to do with Tori Emaki, something that can only be described as an interactive art experience. The concept is refreshingly relaxing. Using the PlayStation Eye camera you control a flock of birds across a work of beautiful Oriental art by moving your body to guide them. As your conduct them across the landscape, you come across a number of different scenarios, ranging from petal-falling blossom trees to the dawn of a fierce battle, each one erupting with the appropriate sounds to drift you into its ambiance.

Along with the numerous inhabitants that you'll come across in the artwork, you'll also find representations of the five Japanese elements; fire, water, wind, earth and sky, each affecting the landscape in a unique fashion. Should your birds discover an element, an explosion of colour washes over the art, dramatically changing its tone and texture to reflect the nature of your discovery; whether it's a village aflame or ships being dragged undersea.

The beauty of Tori Emaki comes from its wonderful watercolour style, making each scene worth taking in fully before your gracefully animated birds move on to the next. It all works delightfully to create a tranquil yet constantly interesting environment that successfully combines both art and interaction into an enchanting whole.

Mesmerize

With the PlayStation Eye camera, when you gaze into Mesmerize, Mesmerize gazes into you. This is no idle philosophical musing, but an intriguing truth; the visual and aural effects that appear on-screen react to your movement and sound. Whether you're clapping, clicking your fingers, waving your arms or just generally gesturing at the camera, it's all translated into a spectacular sound and light show of colours and shapes.

The form they take depends on the theme you choose, with two main packs - Distort and Trace - containing five scenarios each. Urban, for example, allows you to create a glowing cityscape of transparent towers, adding light and motion with your hands, while Pincushion reflects your image across a vast number of pins that can be frozen with a sudden sound to make a colourful 3D picture.

Across all the themes the end result is always interesting, hypnotic or indeed, mesmerizing, making Mesmerize a relaxing yet enjoyable and entrancing pleasure of the senses.

Feel Ski

Skiing is all about nerve and control. The latter is particularly important unless you like bundling down a slope like a giant snowball, followed by your skis and poles. But if your ability is a little lacking and you're finding it all a bit too cold to venture out on a real piste, Feel Ski gives you a chance to indulge... without the dangers that would normally come with it. 

Rather than merely guiding your personalised skier with analog sticks, direction and speed, Feel Ski uses the SIXAXIS Wireless Controller's motion abilities. Tilting down increases speed and momentum, steering left or right does just that on-screen, while pole pushes, jumps and tricks can also be attempted with twists and flicks of the controller.

With a choice of practice modes, time trials, slalom racing, split-screen battles and four-player online options, there's a wide variety of avenues to test out this intuitive control scheme. Even if you're without friends to go against, there's the opportunity to save your best performances as replays and then race against them as ghosts, hoping to shave seconds off your time and maybe even find one of many multiple routes to the finish line. 

The steady challenge offered means there's a surprising amount to Feel Ski, but it's the intuitive control system that ensures the slopes have never felt better.