0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - The Amazing Virtual Sea-Monkeys

    

The Amazing Virtual Sea-Monkeys is an action simulation game, with puzzle elements the game developed by Creature Labs and published by Conspiracy Entertainment Corp, Red Cap Software, Kotobuki System and Swing! Entertainment.

The game was first released on the PC in 2001 before being ported by Elo Interactive Media to the Playstation 1, the game would release in Europe on the 19^th of July before getting a North American release in December of the same year. Some sites say the Game Boy Advanced release in 2003 was cancelled this however was not the case with copies available on Amazon.

During the course of the 70 levels available in this game, the player who plays as Nautila has to guide newly hatched brine shrimp to safety, sucking up dangerous fish, clearing rocks and supply food for the brine shrimp so they survive.

The brine shrimp try to reach the Venus shell as soon as they have hatched and If the player is too slow in solving puzzles and clearing obstacles for the shrimp they will perish. The player can user other fish to help them progress through the levels, for example Lantern fish help show the way while other fish help deter predators. a total of 70 levels for the player to play through with increasingly difficult objectives.

You play as Nautila, a babelfish who the player uses to influence the environment of the fish tank where the game is set your aim is to guide brine shrimp resembling the Sea Monkeys brand to a Venus shell as soon as they have hatched.

Review for this late Playstation 1 title are hard to come by but we have two critic and one user review, as well as the GameFAQs user data. But first we will start with the critics ratings of the game, first up is Offical Playstation Magazine, who scored the game a 1.5/5 which converts to a 30/100, this is the highest review score for the game.

GameCola.net were a little late reviewing this game their review coming in 2005, time however was not a good thing for this game with a review score of just 28/100. There review conclusion reading, To the rest of us, stay away. Stay far away. Everything about Sea-Monkeys absolutely screams "budget title," and it isn't even good for a laugh. After the first few levels the novelty of playing a game based on brine shrimp wears totally thin, and all you're left with is a game based on the worst mission in every other game.

Lemmings has this fault too, but in least in Lemmings, you've got loveable characters that actually do what they're told to do, and who are thoroughly entertaining to watch explode. Sea-Monkeys works pretty good as a conversation piece, or as a way to defeat your friend in the upcoming "Who Has the Strangest Licensed Game?" competition; but other than that, you could be spending that four bucks on Magic: The Gathering cards.

The one user review from Chemocles you know is going to be bad when it’s title reads, this game could take the title from E.T In their 1/5 review which converts to just a 20/100 score. their conclusion reading, I wanted so badly to have a Sea Monkey game that I didn't even consider how bad it could truly be. Sean Baby is going to have a great time reviewing this one. Avoid this game like the plague. It will kill you quicker.

On to the GameFAQs user ratings which are healthier than the review scores with the game currently sitting at an average rating of 3.00/5 from a total of 7 user ratings. Breaking it down we find the lowest user rating for the game is a 2/5 with 1 user giving it this rating, another 1 user scored the game a 2.5/5.

The majority of user ratings are pretty respectable however with them either scoring the game a 3/5 or a 3.5/5. On to the games difficulty next which has again been rated by 7 users, with 3 of them rating the game as easy, another couple of users thing the game has just the right difficulty, while the remaining two found the game simple of tough, with the game averaging out at easy/just right.

The games lifespan is up next this time with 6 users rating this category, with 3 of these users spending around 8 hours with the game. The remaining 3 users are spread between 2 hours, 8 hours and 20 hours, averaging out the games lifespan to 9.7 hours.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit five online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com,  eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, I will also be including Ebay.com as well

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where if you are looking to trade in your copy of The Amazing Virtual Sea Monkeys you are looking at getting $1 from Gamedude for your copy. If on the other hand you are in the market for a copy you can expect to pay $5

Retrogames.co.uk sadly do not stock this title so we move on to eStarland.com, who do stock the title with a used complete copy available it is priced up at $12.95. a usual eStarland offer a trade in for you copy of the game with them paying up to $5 for a copy.

Heading next over to Amazon.com where copies of this game are plentiful with prices for a good quality and complete used copy starting around the $6.50 mark. A very good quality copy can be picked up for $7.99 however this is fulfilled by Amazon so you will need to spend at least $25 to get the free shipping.

The next cheapest Very good copy that does not require a $25 spend is priced up at $9.48, if you are looking for a like new used copy of the game the cheapest on offer after the fulfilled by Amazon copy is $10.48 which is only 49 cents more expensive than the fulfilled by Amazon copy without the $25 minimum spend.

A new copy while some are well over $20 you can still pick up a new copy pretty cheaply with prices starting at $10.74, this converts to £8.32 in the UK, in the Euro region countries it will set you back €8.99 while in Barbados it will cost you 21.48 Barbadian Dollars.

Now to Ebay.com and once again we set out shipping location to the UK, where we find a couple of disc only copies which can be picked up for around $3.30, these are either acceptable of good quality copies of the PAL version so will work on European Playstation 1 consoles.

If you are looking for a complete PAL version of the game it won’t cost much more with a very good condition copy available for $4.20 this also comes with free shipping. Only one new copy of the game available this is a North American copy of the game which is priced up at $29.99 + $18.49 for shipping to the UK, if you are in the US the shipping costs for this new copy will be only $4.

Written by

P J Gibbon