Customer Reviews

Seaman

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Seaman is not a game. It is difficult to define just what type of program it is, but it is not a game. It is akin to a system simulation, but it also incorporates some advanced Artificial Intelligence as well as voice recognition.

The result is something like a virtual pet, one that is quite smart and entertaining. But it will take quite a bit of patience on the part of the user to enjoy Seaman to it's fullest. The simulation proceeds at a pace that is determined by the Seaman program, not by the user. And many users will get quite frustrated with this aspect of Seaman.

This program is experimental in several ways. Firstly, it is educational as a biological system simulation. However, part of the simulation is over simplified, and is based on a series of experiments by a fictional scientist in the 1930s. This story is explained in detail by the program narrator (Leonard Nimoy) and the manual. There is even an extensive website dedicated to the background story. Still, it can teach the basics of semi-closed and managed ecosystems.

It is also experimental in that the AI can be very entertaining and surprising, as long as the user has the patience to care for the Seaman in the beginning when things can get quite boring. This part of the Seaman program will really get inside of many people's heads, like it did mine. You will find yourself thinking of Seaman often even when you are not actually playing the simulation.

And, Seaman is also experimental in that the entire concept is new and different from anything that has ever appeared on a game console before. The very idea is unexplored territory for the video game market, and could possibly ignite an entire line of AI/Voice Recognition based 'games'. Seaman is wildly popular in Japan, where it has been available for a year or so. Given the type of program that Seaman is, it needs to be stated that the conversion of Seaman from Japanese to English must have been a monumental effort.

You rear and care for your Seaman via the Dreamcast controller, and you communicate with him via the included microphone, which plugs into the second VMU socket on the controller. In addition, you will need a dedicated VMU for Seaman. It needs to be stated that the less expensive third party VMUs are not satisfactory for use with Seaman. This is because essential feedback is conveyed to the user via the LCD display on the Sega VMU, and not on the TV screen. Also, the manual alludes to the future need for additional VMUs as the Seaman 'evolves'. Two Sega Dreamcast VMUs can be attached to each other, allowing for data exchange, and this may be necessary for Seaman's continued growth.

Seaman does not lend itself to hours of extended gameplay. The Seaman will let you know when your sessions are over, and the sessions can be quite short. I tend to my Seaman (his name is Shadrach) twice a day, once in the morning for about fifteen minutes or so and once in the evening. The evening sessions have lasted as long as an hour or more. Seaman has to be fed regularly and his environmental needs have to be attended to or he will die, and you will have to start the simulation over from the beginning.

Seaman learns from your interaction with him. The more you talk with him, the more he picks up on various aspects of your life. Seaman can be quite talkative at times. And he can be very rude and surly. You may want to think twice before bringing your Seaman up when company is around. Seaman regulary asks fairly personal questions, and will surprise you with his insights regarding your life (as you've described it to him) and remembers what you tell him quite well. Seaman also defecates and passes gas often, and is quite proud of his efforts, voicing the impending self-relief to everyone within earshot. So be advised.

With multiple VMUs, it is possible to have more than one simulation, so a Seaman provided with bogus personal information for one of them would be a real hit at a social gathering. The Seaman voice recognition is not capable of discerning individual voices, and he will happily converse with anyone who talks to him.

At first, I thought the voice recognition software was seriously flawed. But the Seaman, in his earlier stages, simply has not learned enough to comprehend much of what you say to him and cannot respond. Seaman comes with a limited amount of pre-defined reactions. As time passes, each Seaman develops his own unique personality, and his language and comprehension skills conform to you, your way of thinking, and your use of grammar. And he will ignore you less and less over time.

Seaman is not for everyone. But if you are an experimental, patient type of individual and willing to trod new and unexplored territory, then Seaman may be for you. Be prepared, however, for he really does get inside your head.

This game is simply mind blowing!

It supercedes "videogames", it is something different entirely.

It is more like a pet. A virtual pet, you have to take care of it, but it actually has a life of its own and you can talk to it and it talks to you.

The game takes a while to get into and it is boring at first but once your fish mature and learn to talk it becomes one of the most amazing feats of technology I've ever seen.

This is not a game. This is not a game. This is not a game.

Repeat that phrase and you will begin to understand what Seaman is all about. Seaman is about taking care of another life for weeks and weeks and weeks. I bought this game with a brief knowledge of what it was about. 'Taking care of a fish with a man's face', when I popped that GD-Rom out of the case and played it in my Dreamcast I was in absolute shock. Your taken to a whole other world. Leonard Nemoy greats you, with his typical monotone voice which fits perfectly in this bizare and extrodinary piece of software. Your job is to to raise a Seaman from birth [in a most shocking experience] to adulthood...or if your not very caring death. It is from your parental guidence that the Seaman begins to learn to speak. [Which in the long run can be a mistake]. Because if you don't treat him well, he's gonna tell you and sometimes he isn't exactly the nicest pet you'll ever meet. This has been such a great experience for me. I'm on the fifth day for the second time, after a brief "experiment" where I was unable to feed them for a few days.

Let me just say this. This "software" is not for the faint at heart. Once you start the habitat you have a responsibility to take care of it. If you can't take at least once a day to take care of your tank, maybe this isn't for you. Because Oxygen, Heat, and Light must be kept up or else your comfortable environment will become a death trap for the baby seaman.

So if you have the patience and the guts take a trip into a gaming experience like no other. Seaman is terrific and, well, if your thinking about getting a real pet such as a dog, a cat, or a fish....buy this game....maybe you'll even learn its quite the undertaking and you won't just buy the puppy in the window because it looks cute.

Graphics: 4 out of 5 [The tank is somewhat bleak, it contains very little action. A few rocks, a few plants, and the seaman. But the level of detail the seaman have are wonderful. From their large variations of facial expressions to their deeply descriptive bodies]

Sound: 5 out of 5 [Wonderful Sound! This game captures the sounds of water perfectly. The voice of your very own Seaman changes from a high baby voice to a deep man's voice. The audio is very very good]

Lasting Appeal: 5 out of 5 [Basically Seaman will last for however long you want it to, Granted that you take care of it. There is no "End Level" or "Final Boss", this is simply the experience of having your very own pet and for that reason it is wonderfully lasting. You may be intrigued to start various habitats on different VMU's just to see the evolution over and over again. There is a great deal of change in the growth of your seaman. It is not the same experience over and over again. Also on a final note, I find myself going to check on my Seaman at least 3-4 times a day, that's gotta be worth something.]

Gameplay: 5 out of 5 [Very well crafted, works very well with the game mechanics. Taking care of the tank and your seaman is an easy and simple process.]

This is a great game overall. The originallity to the game just makes it even better. I was skeptical at first like most people I thought the game would be stupid, untill i played the game at a friends house. That is when i realised how great this game is, not only is it like another human to talk to some of the things he says are amazing. He remembers everything you say to him and can piece them together. Like i told him i was a forensic scientist, then when i told him my favorite movie was the silence of the lambs like 3 days later. He told me that he was scared that a scientists likes a movie on serial killers. Then he said hey keep thoose needles away from me. Overall the game though takes a lot of patience and daily care. I don't mind though because it's a lot of fun to raise something and then be able to talk to it. I mean how many people can talk to their pets and have them talk back. There is one general rule to remember though is that what you put into the game is what your going to get back. The game has a tremendous replay value considering that one seaman will always be different then another one. A must buy for dreamcast owners. Just to get the microphone is worth the price trust me it's a great game.

This game is an even better deal now that it is only 20 dollars. Buy this game just for the unique sake of playing it. Its a very good game, and worth a play by everyone. Its hard not to get hooked (no pun intended) by Seaman

this game is really fun. it's kinda like a sim mixed with a giga pet. you feed it , raise it, take care of it, and of course, talk to it. yes, some of the time the words are missunderstood, but if you talk loud and clearly enough, it's just fine.

Seaman is a strange adventure that rewards the patient. If you're looking for button-mashing, then move on, because you will be sorely disappointed in this game. What Seaman provides is a totally emersive experience in which you raise your "babies" to eventually become a full-fledged Seaman. As he grows you converse with him using the included microphone pack and learn about each other. While he can be moody and acerbic, Seaman seems to be truly well-intentioned. I've been raising mine for about 3 weeks and look forward to my daily visit. I can't wait to find out what he will say next or what the next step in his evolution can be like. A hint for the impatient folks: you can advance Seaman by adjusting the clock of your dreamcast and restarting the game. This is especially helpful if you get occupied and can't get to the tank on a given day to check in. I wouldn't recommend using this trick to accelerate play, however, because part of the overall experience is to have the daily interaction that allows your Seaman bond to grow deeper over time.

Seaman is a really fun and original game. It features Leonard Nimoy as the Narrarator every time you start up the game. He gives you hints and advice prior to each session. I thought that it was pretty neat how you start off with an egg to drop into the tank. You then have to adjust the Heater, air, and light to the correct settings in order for it to hatch properly. After dropping the egg in the tank, you are forced to wait it out. So when you turn the game off, your VMU is still active and waiting the birth out as well. Right now, my wife and I are trying to teach them how to talk. I thought that it was especially amazing when we were saying a few words over and over into the Microphone, when one of them cried out and said "I'm Learning!". My wife and I looked at each other with astonishment and fear. "My goodness, did you hear that?", my wife replied. It is like teaching a child to talk. Remember that this is not your average type video game but like a Virtual Pet. You need to take care of it, talk to it, feed it, and even tickle it to make happy and healthy. Overall, this game may not appeal to everyone but I gave it 5 stars because it did to us.

I bought this game almost a week ago, and I haven't touched any of my other Dreamcast games since. I don't really know why, either. All I know is I'm fascinated by Seaman. First off, let me just say that you need two things to enjoy Seaman, patience and an understanding of what you are about to undertake.

When you turn on Seaman, you are greeted by the great Leonard Nimoy. He updates you on your progress each time you begin the game. It's a beautiful touch, which always makes smile. You are given a virtual aquarium at the beginning of your adventure, some food, and a Seaman egg. You have control over the lights in the tank, the air quality, and the tank's heater. These all create a nice, simple interactive environment right away, although it would be nice if you could turn the heat down as well as up. As it is, if your water gets too hot, all you can do is wait for it to slowly drop. So with all this ready, you drop your Seaman egg in the water and begin your Seaman's life.

I'm going to skip ahead some. There are steps to raising your Seaman which I won't go into here. Learning for yourself how to raise your Seaman is most of the fun of this game. In fact, if I could go back, I would even start the game without having read the instruction booklet. Anyway, the real fun begins when your Seaman has grown up and starts talking to you. It's almost eerie when he starts asking you personal questions and responds accurately to your answers. You'll be calling all your relatives to share the experience with them. You'll even get a chance to name your Seaman.

I'm having so much fun with Seaman, and I haven't even had it a week. The only problem I have seen is with the voice recognition system. A lot of times, your Seaman won't understand you and will either stay quiet or just look at you and say, "What?" But it hardly takes away the fun of the game. All you need is patience. Now, I'm going to go check on my Seaman. Buy this game right now!

To me, Seaman was one of the last games made by Sega that really showed that they didn't care about making money- only about making innovative games. You can't tell me that they thought this was going to be a huge hit and make the Dreamcast a smashing success. A talking fish/person virtual pet game? On the same system that had Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue, SoulCalibur, Crazy Taxi, House of the Dead and more? THIS was what Sega put a lot of time into? Regardless, I loved the game because I knew what I was getting into. It's a shame that the sequel didn't see the light of day for the Dreamcast either (it was released for the ps2 in Japan a few years ago).

If you don't know, Seaman puts you in the role of a kind of caretaker to an aquarium. Leonard Nimoy narrates the game at the title screen before you get into taking care of things, letting you know what's happened since you've been gone and what you should do next. You start out by placing an egg in the tank, setting the oxygen and heat levels, and wait. Soon, the egg hatches, and little spore-like creatures pop out, swimming around. They don't do that much, and eventually most of them eaten by a creature in the tank. The creature is then poisoned and spits them back out, but they've transformed into little fish with human faces! And they talk to you! Granted, they sound like babies and have limited vocabulary at this stage, but the fact remains. After a few days, they begin to kill eachother until only 2 are left, and those two will begin to communicate with you, the caretaker, over the next few weeks, having real conversations.

I know what you're thinking- what the hell just happened? Yeah, you suddenly go from just looking after fish to basically having virtual therapy with a talking man-fish. Surprisingly, Seaman asks a lot of personal questions for you to answer using the microphone, like what your relationship status is, if you're happy with life, if you've ever cheated on your significant other, what you want to be, etc. He'll also go into some nice speeches about life and what he thinks the most important thing ever invented was. Believe it or not, I got a lot out of talking to Seaman (then again, I was 16 at the time), and enjoyed hearing what he had to say about existence and why he -does- exist, and smaller things like how you can't accurately measure temperature because when you put a thermometer in something, you're affecting the temperature. You'll probably want to play through the game a few times and just give him different answers to see what he says. Like when he asked what state we live in, I told him Hawaii. He paused, asked if it was true, and then screamed with joy. Sadly, he asked me which island, and I didn't know what to say, so he asked me where we really lived. Seaman got me there.

That's the extent of the gameplay with Seaman, and though I would've gave the game 5 stars when I first played it, looking back now, you really only play for about 15 minutes a day. You have a set number of conversations with Seaman before he wants to be left alone, and you have to wait until the next day to have a new conversation. For that, it's almost a waste of time to set the game up if you're only going to play for 15 minutes, but because of how interesting the concept and replies are, it's worth it.

Visually, Seaman looked good at the time it came out. But to be honest, all you really see are Seaman and the tank he's in. There's also an insect cage, but it's just as basic as the aquarium. Seaman's facial expressions weren't that varied, but how he was animated was good. There's no music, despite an official soundtrack being released, until the very end when you have to tap along in order to make the credits/closing music play. Seaman's voice actor though, is the star in the audio department here, and he did a fantastic job. You also gotta respect the guy for having to say so much, practically filling the entire game disc with dialogue on his own. Think about things like how he'd have to give a response for every single birth date, telling you what celebrities you share the same birthday with, and then everything else he had to talk about.

I miss the Sega that put this game out. But of course, given how much money they lost during the Dreamcast era, it's understandable why they don't take anymore chances. But maybe someday we can get a sequel in the US for Seaman, or even a remake. Maybe for the DS? It'd be perfect. As it is though, Seaman remains for the Dreamcast, and if you're looking to visit the little white box that could, I highly recommend picking up Seaman, as long as you know what you're getting into.

....but after you've beat it and played it a couple times, it gets really old very quickly. But, this game is %100 original! A very unique and cool concept. I just think more could've been done to keep the replay value up a bit.

The graphics: Amazing
The sound: Very good
Concept: Out of this world!
Replay Value: Gets boring after you play it enough

So the only reason why I'm giving this 3.5 stars instead of 4 is because, let's face it, it can get old very quickly. Plus, you have to have A LOT of free time to keep him alive!!! I used to have that time in high school, but now starting my second semester at college, well.....time isn't as free any more.

It's a game that should be checked out, though. Just be warned, you might get bored with it real quick. I thought it was the greatest game at first, but then it seemed like nothing new happens. Once you beat it, that's it. Replay value is the only major flaw with the game.