reviews

Sea Safari for the XBOXLIVE Arcade.

Developed by Sierra Online

------------------------------

It's easy at first to knock this game for being a perfect clone of the Nintendo 64 game Poke'mon Snap, from it's premise to control scheme-- You're on a railed movement through an underwater location, snapping pictures of sea life. In each level you have an item you can toss at the sea life to make them do a little trick, which is worth more points if you snap a picture of it.

I actually bought the game as soon as I finished the demo, because I wanted to see how deep the rabbit hole went.

Indeed, there's something to just going along trying to get that perfect shot. Sometimes the Marine Biologist you work for gives you a task like snapping a better picture of an already documented fish, or finding a specific fish that you've missed.

There's also some interesting little bits...after the third playthrough, special items appear that you take a picture of for jumbo points, like a crab wear a diving helmet, Poseidons Spear stuck in the side of the Abyss Level...There's even a Mermaid in one level, and a Kraken in another. The Kraken scared me a little the first time I saw those tentacles...because I am deathly afraid of tentacled things.

While it is a fun, and maybe even relaxing distraction, you may feel the novelty begin to wear off after playing a few levels. After which, you should set it aside for a time and come back to it when you feel like snapping pictures of fish.

On a downside, it is a rather short game, and the Acheivements are very easy to get. The hardest one you'll probably have trouble getting is Shell Collector (30 points), because those damn little shells aren't easy to find.

That said, it's best to approach this as a toy than a game.

Share this article: