Saturday, September 25, 2010

My Aquarium 2 (WiiWare) Review




If you are looking for a WiiWare game this virtual aquarium is not for you, but on the other hand, if you’re looking for an aquarium filled with expensive rare fish and an abundance of food without the high cost, My Aquarium 2 is absolutely perfect for you.


My Aquarium 2 almost can’t be considered a game because there is very little interaction.  You are just a spectator watching 8 different fish tanks, filling them with different varieties of fish that you unlock.  Being able to unlock more fish offered a small reason to continue playing, but the only differences between the fish are appearance and diet.  There is also no story or characterization to speak of in this game.

It is nice you are able to customize the tanks with a variety of backgrounds, lightings, floorings and glass decorations. The few controls that you do use are very simple and thus provide no challenge whatsoever. There is no difficulty, so if you can play a Dora game this should be fine for you.  It is only single player, but then again if you have a guest over, I don’t think you really would be finding yourself playing this virtual aquarium. Although it doesn’t have co-op, you can share your aquarium with your friends if your Wii is hooked up to the internet but even connections over the internet cannot make up for the games lack of depth.

The game does have beautiful graphics. Most of the fish look identical to the real thing, in particular the Japanese Sea Nettle, the Moon Jelly and the Flashlight Fish.  Although some fish take on a cartoony look such as the Ribbon Barracudina, it most certainly does not look bad.  All the rock formations and plants also look just like they do in nature, some of them even look better.  Almost everything looks as real as possible, but I did say almost.  Although the fish, the rocks, backgrounds and plants are flawless, 2 out of the 4 floorings are blurry and pixels are visible. Aside from this minor setback this game definitely mastered graphics.

Hudson also did a great job on the music and sound of My Aquarium 2.  Even though it only has 4 different songs they are all well produced and are very soothing while you swim around with your fish.  I just would have liked to have had a bigger selection of music because after 3 or 4 times through the cycle they all became very boring and I just muted my TV and listened to nothing.  Although there isn’t a wide variety of music this isn’t a game where you play for 3 hours at a time, so it isn’t a huge deal the music gets old quickly but it doesn’t mean it’s okay that there is such a small selection.

Because there is no story, you would expect a lot of replayability in My Aquarium 2; however, you would be wrong.  You are given 8 different fish tanks to customize and to add different fish, but you really don’t need that many tanks because of the lack of variety in the fish. Unlocking fish is either too easy or confusing and gets boring quickly. These new fish do nothing to improve your tank nor do they have differing behavior; they simply are there to provide a new face at which to look.

Overall, some aspects of the game are done well, and Hudson has a great concept albeit not fully developed.  My Aquarium 2 needs many improvements most notably replayability. If you really enjoy watching fish and don’t mind spending a small amount of money you may want to check it out, but if you want a game with a story that you’ll want to play again, keep looking because this isn’t for you.

-Blake Everett


6/10  Decent

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