[Timgt5]

In honor of the Sega DC’s tenth anniversary I thought I would review a couple its most Interesting titles

Seaman, for Sega Dreamcast, a review

Released: 1999
Developer: Vivarium
Type: Virtual Pet
Genre: N/A
Platforms: Sega Dreamcast Exclusive
Rating: T (Teen)

Seaman stands to this day one of the more unique games ever published. The concept of raising an animal that you can converse with has never been duplicated elsewhere.

Highs: Unique premise, Good graphics, innovative ideas, a truly interactive game

Lows: Seaman’s repertoire is limited sometimes, requires a lot of patience and dedication. .

The Premise: As the game opens the voice of Leonard Nimoy guides us to the lab of the mysterious scientist John Paul Gasse’ in this lab we are about to discover the mysterious creature called Seaman. We have been left in charge of raising and caring for it. .

The Game Play: As the game starts, the player is presented with aquarium, and a storage matrix. To start the aquarium must be prepped. Using the controls the player can raise the temperature and pump in fresh oxygen. At 18 degrees Celsius and with 75 count oxygen the environment is ready. The player then drops in the egg from the storage matrix and the life cycle begins. The first thing that happens is the hatching of the parasitic “mushroomers” These pod-like creatures are consumed by a nearby nautilus, who then becomes violently ill. As the nautilus dies 4 “gillman” emerge.

Once the Gillmen are born the game starts. The Gillmen are the baby versions of Seaman. Your task is to maintain a comfortable environment for them by maintaining the proper levels of heat and oxygen. You can begin to interact with them. Tap the glass of the tank and they come to you. You can tickle them as well. Most importantly you can talk to them, via a microphone included with the game. The Gillmen act like real babies and will answer only in gibberish, but the more you talk to them however, the faster they begin to learn real words and can begin to converse back. Two of the Gillmen will cannibalize the other two and then need to be fed from the pellets in the storage matrix.

In time the Gillmen grow going through a brief teenage stage, in which they develop a bad attitude and personality. This is relatively short lived and they eventually become adult Seaman, a fish with the face of a person. The voice for the adult Seaman is supplied by George Takei (Sulu from the original star trek). Seaman can fully converse with you. Seaman will ask you questions about yourself (age, gender, occupation, marital status etc,) He will then tailor his conversation to your answers. A program of this type is tricky to pull off and Seaman can only deal with one person, anyone else trying to speak to Seaman confuses him. For the most part the interface works well, but occasionally he resorts to stock responses if he does not understand you.

As the game progresses, Seaman will ask to be named. Treat Seaman well (keep up with his Oxygen and heat, talk to him frequently) and he will eventually have you work with him to drain the tank and turn it into a terrarium. He also lets you know that there is another terrarium in the lab that contains Moths. The larvae of these moths act as his second food supply when the pellets run out. You must manage this environment as well and keep some moths around to reproduce. Ultimately Seaman evolves into a frog-like creature. At some point you will release him into the wild and end the game.

The mechanics of the game are simple to learn. There is dedication involved as proper maintenance requires a visit at least once every 24 hours. Otherwise Seaman’s environment becomes inhospitable or he runs out of food and dies, thus ending the game. Each time you start up the game, Leonard Nimoy comes in with an update and advice.

Graphics and Sound: There is not a lot to this game visually. The presentation looks fine even by today’s standards. If you leave the aquarium running by itself for a few minutes, it can be quite relaxing. The audio also works well. Leonard Nimoy and George Takei are pleasant to listen to and the sound effects are good. There is no music to speak of in the game.

Kids Corner: The game is T rated but I do not see anything here that pre teens could not handle. Seaman does not curse and of course there are no humans depicted in the game.
It also does not feature any violence. I think a game like this could actually impart some good lessons about life cycles and also develop a sense of responsibility in kids.
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Seaman was a rather unique gamming experience. A sequel appeared on PS2 (Japan Only-Boo) but no one has tried to create anything like it since. Too bad really, with modern software voice recognition systems something like this could really be good.

In fact this would make for a great Wii game, Sega and Nintendo are you listening??

Awww, little Seaman. Cute game.

[Timgt5]

Originally Posted by Deborah35

Awww, little Seaman. Cute game.

aint he though??

Yes, Seaman is. I like when he asks you questions too. One was, When is your birthday? What do you look like? I was told a young person is going to be taking care of me, or something like that. The way he whines is cute too.