Three years old, bigger and better than ever, the Nottingham GameCity Festival kicks off today with a city-wide series of consumer and industry events and a flurry of pom-poms.

There are 10.5 million PS2 EyeToy cameras out there, we’re told. Small wonder that Sony is in no hurry to abandon the device and chose GameCity to unveil a pair of new games coming your way shortly. First up Pom-pom Party pushes the technology with colour recognition and, it must be said, the girliest gameplay we’ve ever witnessed. It all works like a fluffy version of Samba de Amigo, with participants ruffling a pair of pink and green pom-poms to match on-screen prompts. Players can also choose difficulty setting, tune selection, location and choice of suitably perky outfits, and two can play at once, as was amusingly demonstrated by Sony London’s Sandy Spangler (real name!) and her chum.

Also on show was Hero. This promising title not only utilises the same colour recognition tech as before but is the first story-driven game developed for the EyeToy. It utilises a nifty luminous green sword peripheral too, which sparkles like a light sabre on screen and develops flame and wind powers as gameplay progresses. It looks like fun. After that the Sony reps in attendance confessed that there were several titles currently in development for the PS3 Eye Camera. Maybe we’ll see something of those at next year’s bash.

Otherwise there’s plenty going on over the next few days, with highlights including a chat with Elite/Lost Winds creator (and full-time videogame legend) David Braben, a live link-up with God of War’s David Jaffe, a BAFTA keynote speech from LittleBigPlanet developers Media Molecule and a Capcom-sponsored attempt to crack the world zombie-gathering record tomorrow night - complete with free face painting, the opportunity to play Resi 5 and dance tuition so that you’ll know how to lurch horribly when they play ‘Thriller‘. It should be an absolute hoot, and it culminates in a live version of Resident Evil much later in the evening.

The GameCity Festival runs October 30th until November 1st. See www.gamecity.org for full details and do check it out if you’re in the region.