Game Review: Aquatopia (PSN)
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Published by: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developed by: SCE Studios London
Genre: Virtual Pet
MSRP: $1.99
ESRB:
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Overview: When I first got my PLayStation Eye, I was eager to try out some games for it, after looking around I realized that unfortunately there weren't many at all, and even less of them were good if any. Being a fan of nature I decided to try out what many call a "Fish Wallpaper"
Gameplay: There really is no gameplay here, you see fish and you can wave your arms around to attract or scare away the fish........that is about it, you can't feed them or anything. When you pres the "Start" button, a menu will pop up which will allow you to choose what fish you want to see and what fish you want gone, there are seven types of fish total. Having fish follow you around can be entertaining for a few seconds, in fact, as I am writing this review, I realize that this game CAN be a nice addition to your collection if you are found having to constantly wait for something for just a few minutes, this will keep you occupied for a very small period of time until your eyes start drifting away into more interesting things such as your walls or perhaps the floor beneath you.
Graphics: Its hard to say whether this game has good or bad graphics, the fish look pretty realistic but honestly, the PS3 can easily do much better, then we hit the fact that this game only costs $1.99 and we start to see that for a $1.99 game, the graphics are pretty good, but for a PS3 game, the graphics could use some extra work, it all comes down to the way you see things. Now ignoring the price and the console this game is on, the graphics could honestly be better, when fish get up close too the camera you can easily see they are fake, not to mention often times they carry blocky animations with them, and they have no self awareness of other fish around them, it seems as if they were given a path to follow and any other fish around them don't matter, so every now and then they will swim towards each other to the point of collision and just keep swimming towards each other until one of them takes another direction.
Sound: To be honest the only sound I ever hear is the sound of bubbles and the occasional "woosh" coming from the fish when they swim away quickly, a nice relaxing optional background song would have been nice. Even as you are scrolling through the menu you hear a bubble burst whenever you highlight a new option.
Replay Value: Once you have seen the first few seconds of this game you have pretty much seen it all already, the fish swim around but they never really do anything interesting, like I said before, the most fun you will have with this is having the fish follow your hand around, then again I don't think this game was made to be fun, but relaxing, in which case it fails to be so as well.
Conclusion: I honestly can not say that I am disappointed with my purchase, but only because I can see myself playing with this as I wait for a download to finish on my computer, or if I am playing "TF2" or "Gary's mod" and the new map download is taking a while, this would be the perfect thing to play. If you are lucky enough to not often have to wait a few minutes, I STRONGLY advice you look the other way because this game will serve no purpose to you. If you often find yourself with spare time and nothing to do, I can easily recommend this game to you.
Final Score:
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