The Amazing Virtual Sea-Monkeys

Most people have had seamonkeys. It’s all part of growing up that parents buy them for their kids, so they can be hatched out, overfed, knocked over and eventually eaten by the cat. But then that’s the miracle of nature at work. You’d think the passing of the decades would produce something a little more spectacular than The Amazing Virtual Sea-Monkeys, maybe a chat show: 'Today on Briney, "I’m a crustacean and loving it.’" Unfortunately you’ll have to make do with Virtual Sea-Monkeys, although the Amazing prefix is more than a bit presumptuous, since this game is anything but. Hatch out your baby sea monkeys in a virtual tank and use them to collect pearls with which you can buy all sorts of oddments to help keep your sea monkeys healthy and entertained, such as automatic feeders or a karaoke machine.

You’d think that coming courtesy of Creature Labs, purveyors of the bestselling Creatures series you could expect a bit more than that, but unfortunately that’s pretty much all you’re going to get. Just sit back and watch your monkeys frolic, that is if you are spared the numerous bugs and slowdowns that cropped up throughout the game on no less than four of our machines.

We’ve been spoiled with Al treats such as The Sims and Black & White, but even for kids this is a poor, not to mention unchallenging and expensive way of cashing in on the virtual life bandwagon. The best thing would be for it to be re-titled 'Sea-Monkeys - as boring as ever but this time we'll make you pay $24.99 to remember that’. That'll teach you to get nostalgic.