March 2008 News Posts
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| Topic: |
Insaniquaruim
review by David Barton |
Date: |
02/02/2003 |
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Insaniquaruim!
1.0 By Astraware and PopCap
Let me be among the
first to say that, if you haven't tried any other game on your PDA,
this is one that must be tried. The graphics are phenomenal and the
game play is very addictive. I spent hours on this game over the
last week and still couldn't get enough.
Let's start at the
beginning. Insaniquarium! supports both Lo-Res and Hi-Res graphics
and has an additional version out for enhanced sound for OS 5.0 and
Clié models that provide that capability. It lot only ran
fine but looked absolutely stunning on my NX70V.
You've probably all
seen games for the PDA that will allow you to keep a pet on your
device - one that requires attention and food and will die if you
don't care for it. Well, this is NOT one of those - this is an
aquarium on steroids! This is a fast paced arcade game that requires
you to not only feed your fish but also protect them from some
pretty nasty beasts.
You start the game
with a couple of small guppies and $200. Each pellet of food costs
$5.00. As you feed your guppies, they will start dropping coins. You
pick up the coins by tapping on them in order to get more money for
food, baby guppies, and other things. As the guppies get bugger they
will move from silver coins to gold coins and ultimately diamonds.
Each diamond is worth an additional $200.
As you accumulate
more money you get the opportunity to purchase food upgrades. This
can alloy you to drop more than one pellet at a time or to upgrade
the food's quality - allowing the fish to grow faster.
Sounds pretty easy so
far, doesn't it? Well, it gets better. When you get enough money you
have the ability to buy another type fish: a Carnivore. The
advantage is that the carnivores drop diamonds from the very
beginning. The bad news is that they don't eat fish food - they eat
fish! In order to keep them alive and happy you have to provide them
with small guppies to eat.
The last type of fish
that you can purchase is a Star Catcher and looks a lot like a
witch's pot on legs that runs around the bottom catching stars. Each
time they catch a star you get another diamond. Where do the stars
come from? I'm glad you asked. Well, enter the Yellow Guppy. By
feeding a large guppy a star formula they turn yellow and start
dropping stars instead of money.
There's only one
drawback. If a smaller guppy gets to the potion first it will kill
them. If your star catchers don't eat a star often enough they will
also die. You have to begin managing your aquarium at a whole new
level in order to keep all this balanced out.
Think you can keep
track of all that? Well, it's time to begin throwing in monsters
than. Periodically during the game (every few minutes) you get a
warning that the game has detected an alien - or two! The first two
aliens that you will run across are Sylvester, an eel looking fellow
with long arms, and Barlog, an ugly beast with fiery red hair. Both
will enter your tank, either individually or as a pair, and proceed
to eat your fish until you kill them.
The strategy behind
this is simple. First of all try to keep them away from your fish by
herding them into a corner (tapping on their body makes them move in
the opposite direction) and then continue tapping on their head
until you kill them.
The third type alien
is a bug slug looking fellow named Gus that you can't kill with your
laser - you have to feed him until he overeats and pops. The final
type can really keep you hopping. The Destructor looks like an
underwater robot that will fire missiles at your fish. You have to
tap on the missile to destroy it and also have to shoot him in the
head with your laser to kill him. Who would have ever thought that
we'd need a missile defense system in an aquarium?!
With all the aliens
that that show up it is a good thing that you are not alone.
Astraware has given you the opportunity to purchase a pet to help
you out. You do this by purchasing pieces of the egg shell until you
can purchase the entire egg. Once you have purchased the entire egg
than you get the pet for the life of your aquarium. In the future
levels you have the opportunity of choosing up to three pets to add
to your tank. Each one has its own ways to help you as listed below:
| 1) |
ZORF is a seahorse that will help by dropping
additional food for your fish. |
| 2) |
STINKY is a snail that will run around the
bottom of the tank and assist in collecting the coins that fall. |
| 3) |
ITCHY is a swordfish that will attach aliens in
the water. |
| 4) |
PREGO is a mother fish that will drop more
babies - especially handy if you have carnivores. |
| 5) |
NIKO is an oyster that will occasionally open
up and give you a pearl worth another $200. |
| 6) |
VERT is a fish skeleton that swims around
dropping gold coins. |
| 7) |
WADSWORTH is a whale that, when aliens show up,
will hold all the smaller guppies in his mouth until the aliens
are killed. |
| 8) |
MERYL, my favorite, is a mermaid that swims
around your tank and will occasionally sing. When she does than
all the guppies to drop more coins. |
| 9) |
CLYDE is a jellyfish that will float around in
the water collecting any coins or diamonds that fall for you. |
| 10) |
RUFUS is a crab that scurries around on the
aquarium floor attacking any aliens that it can reach. |
With all these options than you have
a ton of choices to make on not only which pets to use but also how
best to spend your money. As I said at the top of the review, this
game can keep both kids or adults busy for hours at a time and leave
you with a big smile on your face when you're done. A very big
Thumbs Up for the folks at Astraware and PopCap Games for what will
undoubtedly be one of the best games of the year.
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