Have you ever wanted to relive the exhilarating experience of raising a small school of fish? The heart-stopping action of feeding them? The sheer thrill of cleaning the cage when it gets dirty? You haven’t? Well, too bad, because I'm reviewing the Fish Live Android game. Fish Live offers you the experience of raising something of your own without the fear that it will grow up and drift apart from you. Is it better than taking care of actual fish? Let’s take a look.

The Basics

You start out with an aquarium tank and a bunch of coins (like most games!) You can either acquire this virtual money by patiently waiting for it to appear in the tank, or pay real money. You can start buying fish, plants, and themes right away with your virtual cash stash. You can also get various decorative items such as rocks, shells, and…the flags of various countries. (Of course!)

The Gameplay

The gameplay of Fish Live is much like taking care of an actual fish. You feed it, clean up after it and wait for them to die. (I’m not just being morbid, they actually do have very short lifespans in the game.) You can also breed them together, which I don’t exactly remember from owning fish when I was younger. Maybe I wasn’t doing it right?

Here’s The Thing…

Maybe I was expecting a different kind of experience in this game. I remember being an apple cheeked young lad and playing the Flash game (I’m glad that doesn’t sound dated) Insaniquarium quite a bit. It’s the same concept where you feed your fish and clean up your tank with some added action added in. This action came from aliens invading your tank and trying to eat your fish. You would have to defend your school of fish from the coming danger by shooting lasers at the aliens. It was the early 2000’s, it made a lot more sense back then.

While it sounds pretty strange, that’s what made Insaniquarium an addictive experience. You create a little army of fish and defend them, while doing mundane activities like feeding and cleaning in between. With Fish Live, I felt like I was just watching fish eat and make a mess. It takes a much more patient man than me to do that.

In Conclusion

If you’re looking for a more “realistic” fish raising experience, go with Fish Live. I consider it more of a Tamagotchi than an active game. So if you’re more into checking in on your virtual sea creatures once every few hours, this is the app for you. I’m going to stick to not having responsibility over anything instead.