Well, I just picked up Aquanaut's Holiday, so I'll try to give you a 
review. Point #1. It's not a game. Nope. It's not. There's no real 
object, aside from exploration. You are in a sub which can dive, surface 
(at least until it's "max surface" line is reached, IOW you cannot reach 
the 'surface' of the water), turn, make sounds, and release bouys. The 
object, as I said before, is just to go out and explore. As you cruise 
around, you'll see different sorts of marine life. They are polygon 
based, move very realisticly, and are detailed enough to the point where 
you can identify most species. This is where the sounds come in. The 
index finger triggers make four different variations on a sonar 'ping'. 
You can play with these and see how the marine life reacts. Some will 
ignore what you do, and others will seem to react to certain patterns or 
tones. It's just a matter of exploration.
   As you cruise around, you will see canyons, shipwrecks, a lost city 
(haven't found this yet) and other sights. If you want to mark a place 
where something cool is, you release a bouy. Then, when you are back at 
base (which you can teleport to at any time by hitting the 'return' 
button), you can choose any bouy position from a map, and teleport back 
there. You can have somewhere around 250 active bouys.
   There's your 'gameplay'. Explore. Try things out. Enjoy your little 
(acutally, it's pretty good sized) underwater world. See what you can 
discover.
   There's also a smaller sub-game you can perform at your base that's 
something like 'sim-reef'. You attempt to build a coral reef, and see 
what fish come to populate it. I haven't played with this part, but from 
the instructions, it's not as sophisticated as one of Maxis' Sim 
products, but it could be interesting. The manual says up to 120 species 
can populate the reef, and if you get them all, there's a suprise.
   Visually, it's good. Everything is texture mapped polygons, and works 
pretty well. There's some serious pop-up at times, but since something 
like this needs a serious mental state, it's not too hard to imagine 
things appearing out of the underwater gloom.
   Sounds are subdued. The quiet throb of the subs engine, some sampled 
whale and dolphin song, and, occasionaly, some low key 'new age' type music.
   So there you have it. Now the final question. Yes, I like it. It's not 
for everybody, but I have discovered that the clock has an odd habit of 
jumping forward faster than it should when I'm exploring my underwater 
kingdom. And that's what it's all about, now isn't it?

 
-- 
-CJ

C.J. Herr 
cjherr@xnet.com                        "Reply hazy, ask again later."    O-