Aquanaut's Holiday

"Interesting for a while.."

The ocean. It intrigues many of us. As it should, since it’s one of the few places left on Earth to be fully explored. Some of us become so fascinated by it that we take up careers focusing on it. While some of us may never get to dive 30,000 feet beneath the surface in search of undiscovered creatures, all of us can partake in the PSOne game Aquanauts Holiday, which focuses on diving down deep into the ocean. While the game tries to be as realistic as possible, the limitations of the PSOne in 1996 were just too great I imagine. While the ocean in Aquanauts Holiday is fairly large, too much of it looks generic and unappealing.

There are 2 things to do in Aquanauts Holiday: Swim around and enjoy the serene, peaceful atmosphere or build a coral reef for the fish to enjoy.

Swimming around in your little undersea craft can be interesting for a while, but will lose it’s fun eventually. It takes quite a while to see some fish, and when you do, chances are you won’t be able to get close enough to make out what they really look like. If you’re really lucky, you might come across a manatee or a shark. One of the funnier things to do is to run head-first into a fish, which knocks it back and makes a squishing noise. However, piloting the ship so that it collides with said fish head on can be difficult and, no, you can’t kill anything. This game seems marketed towards people who like to meditate and stuff rather than those of us who are interested in deep-sea exploration, but for those of us more interested in the latter, there are still a few things for you to see in Aquanauts Holiday. One of the interesting things I found on the sea-floor was a pirate ship, which was pretty surprising, since I had no idea that there was anything besides reef-building and swimming with the fish in the game.

Building the coral reef is kind of tough. After exploring underwater for a while, you’ll be awarded pieces of the reef that you can use. Using them is kind of confusing, because you can lay up to 8 of them on one little section of the map. Building the coral reef into something large is going to take a long time. The map which allows you to put the pieces down is really big. Supposedly, fish will attract to your reef once it’s big enough, but I don’t think that you’ll be playing long enough to make it that big.

All of the sea floor and the different uprisings in the ground look really generic, but all of the fish are really well drawn. If you can manage to get close enough to them, they do look realistic. There are a lot of different interesting things to find on the sea floor, but it takes forever to find them because there really isn’t any type of navigational system to rely on, only yourself. So, all I can say is never actually try to look for something, just go swimming around and eventually you’ll come upon something interesting.

Remember when I said that this game seemed more aimed at people who are into mediation and such? That’s because the whole time you’re splashing around in the ocean new age music plays. It really does seem to fit the environment, though, which is nice. Some of you out there that might be expecting something else will be a little surprised. Definitely not the kind of music for the people out there who are into the ‘punk’ or hardcore rock types of music (if you like these kinds of music a lot then I don’t see why you’d even be interested in this game, anyway).

You can also use different sounds to help attract fish and make them less scared of you when you approach them. There are 4 different noises you can use on fish, but I’ve never really found what the difference between them was besides the fact they’re at different pitches. When you crash into the side of the sea-wall you hear a banging noise, but your vehicle never takes damage, which is nice.

I really wish that the ship could of moved just a little bit faster and controlled a little easier. When your ship is going at top-speed, it really doesn’t seem like it’s going all that fast. Plus, it’s almost impossible to slow down when you’re going fast without colliding into a sea-wall or something. Another problem is that when you first turn, the controls will seem unresponsive. However, after you’ve started to turn, the controls will become really touchy and you might end up turning much farther than you originally intended. If they could of just speeded up the ship a little bit and made it so that it could turn normally I would of been completely happy.

Believe it or not, you can actually beat this game, but you have to complete the coral reef first. After you’ve beaten the game, a really cool mode will open up, but I’ll leave that for you to find out.

Overall, I’d say that Aquanauts Holiday is a mixed bag. On one hand, it seems like a boring game with bland graphics and crappy controls, but on the other it seems like a peaceful exploration game with things like sunken ships and ancient treasures that you can find. Since the game is 7 years old, you’ll probably find it for fairly cheap. If you can, go ahead and pick it up and try it out. You might find it fun or you might find it boring, but at least you will have given it a chance.

Foot-notes:

-The ocean is really an interesting place, so of course someone was going to make a game about exploring it sooner of later.

-There are 2 different things to do: Explore the ocean depths or build a reef to attract fish.

-Swimming around the ocean can be fun at first, but starts to get repetitive once you notice how all of the sea floor looks the same and fish are fairly rare.

-Building the coral reef can be pretty confusing.

-New age music plays as you explore the ocean.

-You can use different sounds to attract fish.

-The controls are clunky and your ship is slow.

-If you can find the game for cheap, pick it up and give it a try. You might like it or you might not, but at least it didn’t cost you very much.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/12/03, Updated 07/12/03