Aquazone 2 - Oceans of the World - AQZOWOWBX2 -
360 degrees of freedom across 4 ocean environments!

After reading other reviews, which were positive, I thought it would be nice to have another aquarium in addition to the one I already have with Windows. The one that came with XP looks absolutely terrific so this one will probably look the same; not a chance. I do not believe that anyone would mistake the Aquazone 2 fish as being real. The graphics appear to be using outdated software (about five to ten years).
 
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Not as realistic as I hoped, Similar looking to Disney movies like happy feet, or Madagascar. If you use more than three types of fish or higher quantities of same fish the movements becomes jerky. I have a dell dimension 8400 w XP2, a 3GZ processor with 2GB of ddr2 ram and the fish movements are still not lifelike. Will not play in the TV DVD player, for computers only. The price was ok, Free after rebates (still waiting).
 
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There were quite a few negative ratings about this product on the site already. I should have paid attention to them - I paid more attention to the few positive ones. The software is so out of date, so poor in quality, it really has no business being sold. The graphics are awful. I had used a screensaver several years ago that was superb; crystal clear and detailed with features - it cost about $25. Oceans of the World was just the opposite. Thankfully it had a full refund rebate, but it wasn't worth the time - I threw it away.
 
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I would not have purchased this without the rebate - and after seeing what it does/doesn't do, I sure hope they honor the rebate - I would hope that if there's a lot of rebate complaints (which appears inevitable) that buy.com would step in and assist. I'm not impressed with what it does or how it works or looks. The "feeding" is a joke as the food just falls to the ocean floor and sits there - nothing ever comes to get it. The "tap the glass" option is also a joke as nothing responds to it. When changing oceans, you're given a choice of fish that don't exist in that particular ocean so, again, nothing happens. It's still installed (at least for the time being), but I'm very disappointed and will be even more disappointed if I have fight for my rebate.
 
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This is complete garbage, even for free it's not worth the buy.
 
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Good luck getting the rebate from the manufacturer. I went back and forth with them and finally got my rebate after SIX MONTHS. First they denied the rebate stating it was missing the registration card. Well, I had copies of what I sent and proved to them that it was sent in the original submission. After that, they approved it and claimed they sent a check. Several months later after I still didn't receive the check, they sent a replacement check and that finally made it to me months later. I honestly believe the manufacturer doesn't want to rebate their products. I hope you have better luck than me, but I'll never purchase another Smith Micro product in hopes of receiving a rebate from them.
 
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I am really disappointed in this software in that it does not look "real". The description stated that it would look realistic and I do not find that to be the case at all. I purchased this because of the rebate, after the rebate it is suppose to cost me nothing. (I'm still waiting on the rebate.) I would be highly disappointed and upset if I had purchased this under other circumstances, i.e., those in which no rebate were involved.
 
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Clearly at $0.00 your going to get what you paid for. But you can always buy add-ons from the company. I have uninstalled and chucked the disc.
 
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The graphics and effects of this program are kind of a let down. Then you find out it doesn't come with a lot of sealife but you can purchase more... No thanks! The only redeeming thing here is that it's free after the rebate.
 
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The graphic and the animation are not smooth. It is not worth to buy.
 
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I bought this for a real cheap price, but I expected it to be more real, than it actually is. You can still see the animation. I would not use it by myself, but I bought it as a present.
 
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This is the worst product I own. After reading about it,I thought it was going to be better than other software like it. The graphics are just plain cheesy. The fish look like they're just stuck on top of the sea. I don't like it. It wasn't worth the shipping charge. Very, very poor graphics.
 
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So bad
 
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This sw tries hard but does not make it. Performance in Vista is poor , graphics are blury, background is motionless, fish do not respond to tapping as advertised. You should not pay money for something that freeware sw is a million times better.
 
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The program is simple to install, but performance will depend on your system. On my year-old XP with 1 gig ram and dual core processor it ran well; on my 3 year-old XP with 512 ram it didn't. My 10 year-old naturalist daughter loves it, though I found the lack of information on the wildlife disappointing. Species are identified by name, but no further info is given. Graphics on my wide screen are excellent and the program morphed into a screen saver automatically. With the promo rebate this was a fabulous, inexpensive Chanukah gift for my daughter -the price was right, and she loved exploring the scenes. In "night view" some of the creatures are luminescent - really cool! Changing scenes is easy, though since you populate the chosen environment the result is technically inappropriate at times (e.g. tropicals don't mosey around the Arctic as far as I know!) Now, if only they'd make the program more factually realistic and educationally informative, maybe with links....
 
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Has not interfered with any other software on my PC. Not as good as the shareware Dream Aquarium.
 
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Once I receive my rebate, the only money that I'm out on this software is the sales tax. I'm still upset about that! This is absolutely the worst software purchase that I've EVER made. The background graphics look like random bits of clip art pasted together. The fish look realistic, but trying to actually use the software is hilarious. My system more than doubles all of the system requirements, but just moving the mouse is a lesson in futility with the choppiness of movement. Reading the other reviews, if other aquarium software packages are even only slightly better than what I experienced with this one, don't waste your money - sorry, but this program didn't even meet a small fraction of my expectations.
 
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Imagine you are in water without your gargle on! A few occasional fish to swim around! Not worth a dime!
 
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OMG. it sucks! Not so real. Nothing fun. Regretful.
 
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This sounds like a very cool screen saver, and would be if they had invested more effort into quality and testing. When the animals are close, it's very obvious that they are a bunch of polygons with texture maps; they lack that "organic" look. Often it seems as though animals and elements like corals are painted onto sheets of not-quite-clear plastic, and so you see a vague cut-out shape just around the object. Corals and things in the foreground appear very pixelated on a high-res monitor. The deep sea environment just has a bunch of spindly crabs that move gently with the surge, but never really DO anything. Often when the screen saver kicks in, you get a semi-illiterate message about the fish for the camera to follow not being found. Crucial for something to be a true screen saver is that it run on all your screens. But Aquazone 2 only takes control of your primary monitor, leaving whatever is on your secondary monitor still there. Even the free screen savers in XP or Google Picasa handle dual monitors properly. The 3D environment and the idea of a "live" camera following the animals is very cool. It's just that this implementation wasn't done with high quality. I'd recommend waiting to see whether Aquazone 3 is any better.
 
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I've seen much better aquarium screen savers. The fish do appear small on the screen. You can hardly see them unless you zoom in, and then you loose most of the background - and this was at 600x800 resolution. It would probably be worse at a higher resolution. I guess they are trying to keep everything in relative scale. Since you might see a whale on the screen every so often, you can imagine how small the regular fish (like the clown fish) actually appear. Personally I'd rather see the program designed for the regular fish and not even have an option for the larger species which don't appear very often. I haven't played with it much after the initial disappointment. Perhaps I can eventually find a background that I like when it is zoomed in a lot, but other fish aquariums I have played with had a better out of the box experience. I got if FAR (Free after rebate with free shipping), but I don't think it is worth it if you have to buy it.
 
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A fun product with endless configurations. I bought it for a fun screensaver, but its ended up being a learning tool for my kids as they love to play with the settings and learn about marine life. It takes a few seconds to switch back to your desktop, when taking it out of screensaver mode, but this is a minor irritation which does not affect operation of the software.
 
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Unfortunately, it cannot be installed to my son's computer (Dell Latitude C600 notebook with 1GB RAM). I'm very surprised that it requests a high-end graphic card. Even under my Latitude D600 (with 1GB RAM), some feature cannot work because it requests more VGA RAM. Check your graphic chip before you purchase it.
 
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I got this product for free (after rebate) and it was still overpriced. The fish and the backgrounds just don't look realistic and viewing them gives me a headache. For this type of screensaver, the original Microsoft version is MUCH better.
 
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Really great aquarium. Fish and backgrounds very realistic. A little time consuming to set up the type and number of fish but final result is worth the effort.
 
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This is a pretty cool program. It's not quite as life-like as they make it sound, but it still has really good graphics. It seems to take a lot of memory to load and unload it, but then again... it has a lot of stuff in it. I never bought extra fish or anything, they have plenty.
 
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Image quality is nice and my kids love being able to see so many fish. Overall a nice fish screen saver program.
 
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A very relaxing piece of software to watch. There are four oceans to view at your option. I find the colors and species of the Coral Sea to be the best. It also identifies all of the species, if you so desire.
 
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This program tries hard to do a good job at being an aquarium. It has several unique "tanks" (ocean views), but in the end, the backgrounds are blurry, and the fish, while very sharp and clear (in contrast to the blurry coral they are swimming through, which is bad), are usually far away (i.e., small), and a bit cartoonish. Even at maximum frames-per-second, you can see them flicker as they move. Something like Dream Aquarium (free trial) shows that you can have an aquarium that looks real. This one does not. If it is free, try it, but I would not pay for this one. Does NOT look as real as others.
 
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