Arcmedia Ocean Aquarium 3D Deluxe Edition

by SelectSoft Publishing

Product Details

• Item Weight: 7 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B000RDN6YC
• Item model number: 4349
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #145,537 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 26, 2006

Product Description

Platform:  WINDOWS 98/ME/2000/XP Publisher:  SELECTSOFT PUBLISHING Packaging:  JEWEL CASE Rating:  EVERYONE This amazing software turns your PC monitor into an ocean aquarium so realistic it's hard to believe the beautiful sea creatures don't need daily feedings! Where else can you find sharks dolphins sea turtles and exotic fish living together? Nowhere other than Ocean Aquarium 3D.INCREDIBLE REALISM! Full motion life-like movements! Customize your own animal selection or let the computer surprise you! Sea Creature Favorites: Clymene Dolphin Blue Shark Green Sea Turtle Atlantic MantaLarger Exotic Fish: Atlantic Cod Black Sea Bass Blue Marline Bluefin Tuna California Halibut Coho Salmon Pork Fish Red Snapper Winter FlounderTropical Fish Favorites Clown Trigger Blue Tang Flame Angelfish French Angelfish Percula Clownfish Queen Angelfish Regal Angel Squirrel Fish Yellow Tang Mystery FishSystem Requirements: Windows XP Me 2000 & 98 Pentium III 866MHz or better 64 MB RAM or more 120 MB hard disk space 4X CD-ROM drive 800x600 display with 16-bit color (thousands of colors) 16-bit Sound Blaster compatible sound card & speakers

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty, but not too impressive, August 5, 2004

By 

D. Christensen (Leominster, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

OK, first you need to know that there appears to be several versions of this program published by Broderbund, Selectsoft and Arcmedia. I've seen both a regular and a "deluxe" version sold both online and in retail stores. The "deluxe" version has several extra fish. This is reviewing the "deluxe" version published by Arcmedia. The Arcmedia deluxe version appears to be the best deal on this particular program.

There are really just two decent aquarium type screen savers on the market at the moment, this one and Serene Screen (also packaged with Windows XP Plus!, and also known as Marine Aquarium 2.0 by Encore). I own them both now. This one (Arcmedia Ocean Aquarium 3D Deluxe) is more detailed, as far as number of fish and animation of fish goes. But I prefer Serene Screen.

In Ocean Aquarium 3D Deluxe, there are too many fish, and they can swim great distances away from your viewpoint. Thus you have a lot of fish on the screen, but can only really see a few of them at once, as the rest are too far away. You can not reduce the number of fish on the screen without reducing the overall detail, which means (for example) turning off the lighting. There is no separate control for lighting or number of fish, etc., just a slider for detail. The effect is that you have a more realistic "ocean" type view, but it makes for a rather boring screen saver, as there's not much to look at.

So basically, if it's realism you're looking for, this is your program. If it's a good aquarium screen saver you are looking for, go for Serene Screen. The only thing that this has that Serene Screen doesn't is that you can use THIS aquarium as an active desktop in Windows XP. However, you need a pretty powerful video card (I'd suggest directx9 hardware) to use the active desktop feature, and a good video card is strongly suggested if you want to use this as a screen saver, also.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of fish but less satisfying, February 8, 2005

By 

Carol Watkins "Psychiatrist" (Parkton, Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

When I bought this program, I already owned the Marine Aquarium 2.0 screen saver. If I were not already spoiled by that excellent program, I might have given this program more stars. Ocean Aquarium looks more like open water, not a constrained aquarium. You have a choice of a vast number of fish and other sea creatures. You can also have many fish visible at the same time.

The overall program settings are more difficult to adjust. If you have a lot of fish visible at the same time it can be distracting. the fish go back and forth in a predictible line, unlike actual fish. The manta ray and the dophin were well rendered, but some of the other fish appeared to move in more 2 dimensional pattern.

It is more difficult to get the screen saver to fit a wide coputer screen. tha active desk top was a bit distracting for me because of the moving elements, but others might not find it so.

1.0 out of 5 stars ARCMEDIA Ocean Aquarium 3D Deluxe Edition, October 2, 2007

By 

Vern Brown (I am Canadian) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

ARCMEDIA Ocean Aquarium 3D Deluxe Edition
This is based on the "3D Deluxe" supposition, and is nothing near "3D" or "Deluxe". These are pictures of fish moving across the screen, in a straight line, like little soldiers. There is nothing that resembles "3D" or "Deluxe", period. Wasted money, at any price.