Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure

It isn’t very often that a game based off a movie retains much success after release into the video-game market. But the movie-to-game recreations are improving. Now, imagine how successful it is for a game created after the mold of a documentary can be? Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure proves that documentary-to-game remakes are very hard to do.

Sea Monsters places the gamer in the roles of a multitude of prehistoric sea creatures that were depicted throughout the National Geographic documentary. Players can go deep sea swimming with creatures as they are unlocked. In order to unlock a new creature, you must discover a number of fossils buried throughout the underwater world. This may sound like a simple thing to do, but the controls matched with a bland world will prove otherwise.

After being tossed into the world without much information about how to play the game, you must then utilize the simple tutorials in order to determine what to do, where to go, and how to go about accomplishing your goals. Your ultimate goal is to find new fossils and obtain new creatures, but you must also watch your health, which is replenished by eating smaller fish, oxygen, which you regain by heading to the water’s surface, and stamina, which is strangely also linked to your frequency in visiting the water’s surface. Once you learn to maintain a balance between these three attributes, the game almost becomes meaningless in terms of gameplay.

Not only are there a number of obtainable creatures, but they are also separated by a number of different features, attributes, and abilities. Each creature is either listed as prey or predator, but this will only slightly affect the way you play the game. As prey, you hardly ever find yourself in a threatening position, due to the lack of predators throughout the environment. As predator, you will obviously have no worries, but to simply surf the ocean and search for the treasures it offers.

Each creature also possesses a special ability that can give it a unique purpose during the game, and make its presence vital in order for the player to complete the game. One creature will be able to dig, while another will be able to soar up out of the water and over obstacles. Another will be able to swim in a stealthy manner, which is a lot less vital than being able to leap above the surface. There are six playable creatures in all, each with its own purpose in the game.

As you progress, you will need to discover more fossils, but some fossils can only be obtained by completing challenges. These challenges were never very fun, and always a chore to complete. The biggest chore was not actually completing the missions, but finding their location in what the game labels as “The Hub.” This is the central location of exploration, and portals throughout The Hub provide access to other locations. The Hub itself is vast, boring, and very bland to the eye.

The sea in Sea Monsters is an interesting environment. The creatures must reside there, confined by their limitations, but at the same time, the game restricts movement within the sea itself. If the player swims too low, a “deep sea” warning will appear on screen, and the player will discover that their creature is suddenly struggling to live. For some reason, a majority of the provided sea creatures can only swim to a certain depth, and then the restrictions are implemented. Unfortunately for gamers who like to push the envelope, if your stamina falls too low, you will find yourself falling into the depths anyway. Once you reach those depths, your death is nearly imminent.

Controls provided for Sea Monsters are also a bit … well, wonky. The button combines touch-screen stylus movement with the use of the face buttons. But if your stylus strays only a small amount too high or low on the screen, you will find your sea creature heading towards the water’s surface quicker than you could reach the deep sea. The deep sea aspect creates a false sense of closure within the sea itself, so your movements feel limited.

Visually, the game is not pleasing to the eye. When I first leapt into the game, I gave it the benefit of the doubt, almost relieved by the way it looked. Unfortunately this feeling left fairly quickly, and I found myself questioning why everything always looked the same. There is nothing visually satisfying about Sea Monsters, which is a serious letdown considering the game is based off a CG documentary. The bottom screen does display a sonar, but it only covers the immediate area, and you will be able to see items visually just as quickly as the sonar detects them.

From the start, you’d think that Sea Monsters would be loaded with informational facts about the prehistoric creatures that you will be playing as, courtesy of National Geographic. Although there is a simple gameplay mechanic that allows players to examine different fossils and learn a bit of trivia, no other information is made available throughout the game.

Overall, Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure is a poor attempt to educate and entertain children at the same time using a documentary-to-game iteration. Nothing really works well throughout the entire game, although nearly everything does work, at least. For the average gamer, Sea Monsters will prove to be a very boring outing into the sea of prehistoric dynasties.

Gameplay: 4.0
Without a storyline of any shape or form, Sea Monsters does not hold nearly as much water as the oceans you will be exploring.

Graphics: 4.0
Every aspect of the game is bland and boring, much like the fish your sea creatures will be swallowing throughout the mundane adventure.

Sound: 4.0
Not too many sound effects are evident, with just a little scoring included to miserably amp up the deep sea mood.

Difficulty: Easy
The only difficult aspect of Sea Monsters is the trial-and-error attempts to locate different items on the map.

Concept: 6.0
Conceptually, Sea Monsters had a very real, and serious, potential to be an entertaining game.

Overall: 4.5
Sea Monsters will hold as much water as a glass in your kitchen when compared to the depth of any other DS game available today.