why? Why? WHY????

That will be the first question that will come to mind should you be the individual who plays Shamu’s Deep Sea Adventures. This will be followed by questions such as: Why was this game made? Or more importantly, why did someone within Activision think Shamu was a license that needed to be explored in a video game? And finally, why do I hate myself so much that I bought this or why does –insert name here- hate me so much that they gave this to me? Once you ask yourself these questions and get over the fact that Anheuser-Busch did not include a voucher for free beer to make the game more enjoyable, you will find a game that has failed to be anything more than retail shelf-filler. All kidding aside, this is a game designed for a younger audience and as such this review keeps that in mind.

Features

Play a Sea World’s mascot Shamu

20 stages

8 distinct environment types

Unlock bonus content such as postcards and artwork

Story
In a story that the real Shamu would likely love to be part of instead of swimming in his large fishbowl for life, players find that all is not well within the SeaWorld Adventure Park - Poseidon wants to steal the magic of the park away from Shamu and SeaWorld. Determined to stop Poseidon, Shamu ventures outside of SeaWorld and into the strange depths under the park and on to the legendary world of Atlantis. Throughout his quest Shamu will encounter strange underwater animals, amazing beasts, and puzzles; all of which he must overcome in order to save SeaWorld. Overall the game has a rather basic and boring screenplay that comes off worse than an episode of the lowest of low-budget educational children’s television programs. To be fair since this is a children’s game, I allowed two neighborhood children (ages 7 and 10) to play the game, both of which agreed that the story was quote “boring” and wanted to skip past the story scenes.

Gameplay
For any veteran gamer, upon starting Shamu’s Deep Sea Adventures it will be obvious that the game is clearly inspired by the classic Ecco The Dolphin series from the Sega Genesis. While Ecco brought a deep and engaging gameplay experience that was not only fun but educational to gamers, Shamu fails to do this on every level. Despite the 3D graphics, stages are purely 2D side-scrolling with the occasional Crash Bandicoot style chase levels. Players will navigate Shamu through the various stages avoiding enemies you cannot kill but merely briefly knockout, collecting large numbers of collectables, and basically solving the same “bring water to the center of the circle” ring-rotation puzzle over and over again. After the first four or five levels even the youngest players will lose interest in continuing, as the game fails to offer any real variety in gameplay.

Controlling Shamu is rather simple, though wanting to continue controlling him is where the real challenge lies. As players progress through the game they will learn more powerful moves, however Shamu will need to be well rested to use them and even then they are rather pointless.

Graphics
This is a rather interesting area of the game. Since the game does not feature 3D free-roaming environments, the linear 2D style stages barely push the system graphically. With that, the environments are filled with a lot underwater plants, rock formations, and other details. Some areas are detailed and colorful enough to say it even looks rather beautiful, almost as if the classic Ecco The Dolphin games were given a 3D overhaul. Now that being said, once Shamu starts swimming, things get pretty ugly. While I joked earlier about the game lacking a voucher for free beer, what the game should come with is a free bottle of motion sickness pills. The framerate is downright horrible, jittering more than Kathryn Hepburn in her later years. The game never seems to run smoothly while in-game and honestly this is completely unacceptable given the nature of the graphics and the level designs.

Worse than in-game graphics are the cut-scenes, if you can call them that, which drive the story along. You will not find any FMV’s in this game, not even any basic in-game cut-scenes, instead the story is told through a series of blurry still-frame scenes that pile up on the screen as some of the worst voice work in recent memory tells the story.

The only saving grace for the graphics is the animations used for Shamu. Shamu’s animations are smooth and realistic, closely resembling those of the real Shamu. Too bad the amount of attention spent on Shamu’s movements was not also spent on the rest of the game.

Sound
Wow, where to start. Since I already hinted at the audio greatness of this game in the graphics section, let’s start off with the voice work. Shamu’s Deep Sea Adventure has a voice actor. He voices not only Shamu’s friend and future appetizer Horacio, but also narrates the game and talks to you throughout the levels as you collect power-ups and Kraken Crystals, the main collectable in the game. After the first few levels you will come to wish nothing but ill-will upon him and that is completely understandable. The voice work here is pretty horrible, mixed with a really bad script, and the desire to tell you what you have collected many, many times over.

The music and sound effects are much better than the voice work fortunately, however it all sounds rather basic and generic. The music will have you feeling as though you are trapped on a Caribbean cruise ship from hell and sound effects will eventually become pretty grating as there is not a lot of them.

Closing
Shamu’s Deep Sea Adventures is just flat out a bad game. Being a budget title does not save this game or excuse any of its shortcomings, as so many of today’s budget titles for kids are actually very good. If you are looking for something fun for yourself or for any children in your life but do not have a lot of money to spend, check out some of these greater titles such as Ty 3 or Scaler. If you feel the need for some quality underwater fun, then track down Ecco The Dolphin for the Sega Dreamcast or Playstation 2, or even track down the classic Sega Genesis editions. Shamu’s Deep Sea Adventures could have been a good game, if the developers followed those examples, but as it stands, this game should be avoided. I can only recommend this game for the rare oddity known as a “Shamu-Fan” or for any parents who wish to use the game as a tool for punishment.