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Immersive new Blue Oasis screens
Hudson's virtual aquarium Blue Oasis will be available on the Japanese Virtual Console tomorrow, and new screens of fake fish hanging out in a fake tank have been released to promote it. The game has nice graphics and a fairly convincing, realistic style -- which makes the gloved pointer controlling the little food container that much more entertaining. It's vaguely surreal. While you're taking care of your fish's nonexistent hunger with insubstantial food, you can listen to some classical music. We don't imagine that the sound quality will be excellent, because there are 36 selections in the game. It'll probably be MIDI unless Hudson has decided to go for the remainder of users' Wii storage fridges. But the number is still impressive!%Gallery-19348%
Blue Oasis to mellow out WiiWare worldwide?
The German USK ratings board site has been updated with a listing for a Wii game called My Aquarium from Hudson, which is probably the Blue Oasis WiiWare game whose announcement was fully and righteously overshadowed by Alien Crush. Blue Oasis hits the Japanese Wii Shop on June 24th, and this rating hints that it could make its way to Europe, at least, soon afterward.Blue Oasis is a customizable virtual aquarium that allows players to change backgrounds and add the decorations and (most importantly) fish of their own choosing. It will feature simulated fish food and varying levels of light based on the real weather conditions reported by the Forecast Channel. Maybe it's because we're kind of high-strung, but an extremely relaxed aquarium sim like this doesn't really sound bad for five bucks.[Via Siliconera]
Friday Video: Target audience
Ever wonder who those aquarium games are made for? It may seem unlikely to you that anyone would want a game about staring at fake fish. But the commercial (and pretty much all the other advertising) for GungHo's Sakana to Asobou! Aquazone DS (Play with Fish! Aquazone DS) lets us know exactly who these games are for: cats."Healing human (stress? something like that) is a cat's job," the ad's star thinks. "But I want to be healed too." Cue a contented curl into a DS Lite running Aquazone. And cue our hearts totally melting. We went for the Aquazone cat wallpapers right away, and we're considering ordering a copy of the game for our own feline family members. Click on the mellow cat above to access the video!
Aquarium by DS is Zen gaming at its mellowest
For an aquarium game, Aquarium by DS has a nice suite of features. Containing over 30 species of fish, it gives you control over the type and number of fish in the tank, as well as food, temperature, water salinity, and decorative items. It even provides information about each species of fish, along with in-game information about each individual fish's physical and emotional state. So it's a pretty good aquarium game that actually gives you stuff to do. But it's still an aquarium game. The relative sedateness of the thing is, in fact, a selling point -- Aquarium by DS is part of the same Zen series as Paint by DS.It's joined by Fantasy Aquarium by DS, which allows you to fill your tank with creatures that you would not be able to keep at home, like penguins, killer whales, and the noble platypus. Both games allow you to visit others' aquariums via Wi-Fi. But even with penguins and Internets, it's still looking at some stuff in a tank. The games come out in Europe in February, in case you will need calming down then.%Gallery-11048% %Gallery-11049%[Via GamesPress]
Ragnarok Online announced for DS
Better get a DS now if you don't have one, because when Ragnarok Online comes out, all DS shipments will by necessity be diverted to Korea. Ragnarok, for those of you lucky enough to avoid the onset of MMO addiction, is a hugely popular Korean MMO known for its adorable 2D sprites and mascot characters (at least, that's what we know it for.) Like Maple Story, we have no idea if this will actually be a DS version of the real game, or if it'll be a smaller-scale online game, or even online at all. In the same press release, publisher Gungho Online Entertainment announced an aquarium simulator and a flower-arranging game. That's pretty great too.[Via Famitsu]
Brando's USB-powered aquarium: for the fish owner to-be
If you've been eying one of those snazzy USB-enabled fish tanks of late, but are still a bit gun shy when it comes to taking care of a live animal, Brando's got you covered. The USB Interactive Aquarium looks to be the perfect device for the wannabe fish owner, as this completely USB-powered tank includes a pair of thoroughly fake fish that swim around using mechanical tails. The included software allows owners to feed, care for, and play with their robotic pets, and you can even get an underwater rave going by flipping the built-in LEDs off and on in rapid succession. Not a bad way to see if you're up to the real challenge, and for just $23, it's an inexpensive way to snag an office pet that's not needy on the weekends.
Singapore aquarium tags fish with RFID chips
Keeping track of your personal pet using any means necessary is one thing, but embedding RFID chips into some 20 aquarium fishes is taking things to a whole 'nother level. Sure, we've seen RoboFish unleashed in a public aquarium and the means to care for your guppy remotely, but officials at the Underwater World in Singapore now have a much more exciting way to learn details about the animals customers see. Reportedly, the name and species (among other information) about the chipped marine animals are displayed on touchscreen displays whenever they swim by, which eliminates the old fashioned "match the picture with the fish" signs that still exist in other facilities. The project was set up over a three month period and set the venue back $19,600, but considering that the execs are thinking about risking someone's life to tag sharks in the near future, we can only assume that it's been a hit.[Thanks, Andrew B.]
Hello Kitty takes a dip in USB-powered aquarium
You might wonder why a cat would enjoy being trapped inside a container of water, but as you should already know, all rules are thrown out when it comes to Hello Kitty. The USB-powered aquarium features a couple of oh-so-cute Hello Kitty mermaids in a snow globe / fish tank fantasy land, and while we're sure the hordes of fanboys and girls just adore the idea, this one could actually satisfy those on the other end of the spectrum as well -- fess up, it's not too often that you get to satisfy your SO and take pleasure in holding your (least) favorite feline underwater for an indefinite period of time, right?
Wi-Aquarium: the WiFi-enabled fish tank
We've seen everything from WiFi-enabled PMPs, robots, and even gardens, but a recent creation showcased at the Embedded Systems Conference in California took remote access abilities underwater. While not as profound as a bay-patrolling nuke detector, Lantronix's Wi-Aquarium was able to grab the bronze for its snazzy internet-enabled fish tank, which reportedly "allows users to remotely control and monitor their aquarium anytime from anywhere in the world." Moreover, users can login and keep an eye on the situation via webcam, and they can even dictate the water temperature, lights, and filter from afar. The standout feature, however, is the ingrained ability of the tank to send the owner emails containing status reports of several key metrics, which should certainly keep you connected to your sea-dwelling pets no matter your location. Now this is what Tamagotchi should have been from the start, eh?[Via The Raw Feed]
Top 10 strangest Mac mods
Behold, ladies and gentlemen: the Top 10 strangest Mac mods at TechBlog. Johnathan Ive's blood would surely boil if he were to feast his eyes on such mutant Mac modifications as the NecroMac of the PowerMac G4 Aquarium!I know we've linked to a few of these in the past as we heard about them, but it's nice to see them all in one big list - and ranked.
