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| Source // The Wha!?, Emuparadise |
It's a fish with a face. A disappointed, unamused human face. It's Seaman, the virtual pet for the Dreamcast so utterly bizarre that it has made its way onto a list of 1001 Must Play games, and I don't think it's for the gameplay.
This one is going to be different.
Frustrations
Bbbbbother. That's a good start. You'd think that with a little side project like this that I'd be prepared for as many eventualities as I need to be ready for, but this is clearly not one of them.
With no Dreamcast to play, there are a few emulation options available, but I don't have a microphone here. You can probably guess what kind of gamer I am knowing that. Very, very, very rarely did I use the microphone on the PlayStation 3, and that was about it.
So, a small setback then. One that I might be able to rectify and return to at a future time. Until then, though, it looks like I'm going to YouTube - because I'll have much more luck there than in finding a Dreamcast, a copy of Seaman and a microphone peripheral, I can say that for sure.
Fun Times
Seaman features Leonard Nimoy narrating the hopefully successful life cycle of a bunch of goofy looking fish, through their evolutionary quest to... evolve... and survive and whatnot.
You're tasked with taking care of them in their virtual fish tank, where they need feeding, a comfortable temperature, interaction and so on. The microphone would be used to talk to these things, and from what I've read the level of interaction is surprisingly deep.
These fishy fellas will ask you about your life as you look after theirs, and will have witty things to say should the situation arise. They're virtual pets and come with an attitude. So does Leonard Nimoy, from time to time. The more you try to play this game, the more annoyed the game gets with you, and the lifestyle of the fish change with it.
You have to let them be for a few hours, coming back tomorrow to find out whether they're in the mood to ask you about your life. This sounds more and more like a chore, not a game. Why is that a good thing?
Final Word
I've got to bring it to a halt here. I need to get a microphone set up and hopefully working with emulation. I don't even know if that's possible. That'll be a learning experience. And then, if successful, I'll get to hand out with some seriously ugly fish for... the sake of video game history?
Why is this on the 1001 list? Should we play it because, 'haha, fish with a face', or is there actually an experience that I need to experience here? Do I need to know what it means to talk to a virtual fish through a video game console to fully understand video game history? Is Seaman on the 1001 list as a representative of the virtual pet genre? Is this the absolute pinnacle of pet interaction?
I simply don't know first hand. For the first time in a long time I feel, I've not been able to play something and will have to get to work on trying to do so.
Fun Facts
After mating, the male Podfish dies. You don't want to know what that animation looks like.
Seaman, developed by Vivarium, Jellyvision, first released in 1999.
Version watched: Dreamcast, 2000 (Cinemassacre)