News :: 15MR: Fantastic Ocean 3D Screensaver v1.1

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Fantastic Ocean 3D Screensaver version 1.1 by Rixane Interactive—An ocean screensaver with some nice dynamic effects.

As mentioned previously, screensavers will be a brief review.

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Fantastic Ocean 3D takes you on a peaceful flight over the ocean, which is carefully recreated in true 3D.

The effect is magical. It looks as if you were gliding on a paraglide several feet above the waves. The surface of the ocean is like a sheet of glass. The setting sun is reflected on it with a hundred of different shades of color.

The wonderful thing about the view is that it changes constantly. It’s a constant source of enjoyment!”

Quick Pros

• 5 beautiful scenes to choose from, or random selection
• Cloud movement subtle but effective; Water ripple smooth and flowing
• Other effects very nice (Lens flare, cloud reflections, sun flicker)
• No irritating desktop icons if you don’t want

Quick Cons

• No anti-alias or other advanced features support (Visible heavily on horizon and top 20% of water)
• Water could be a little more dynamic; Whitecaps?
• No selection for where to put start menu icons
• Could have been some marine life movement

Expansion

As mentioned above, not going into great detail here. While it looks very good, there are still some lacking features for this day and age. What is really visibly needed for this one is anti-aliasing for the horizon and the water towards the horizon line. The jagged lines become quite profound in such a smooth-flowing movement. There is a lot of detail placed into this screensaver, such as the cloud movement, lens flare, cloud reflections and the sun flicker. However it still doesn’t have a totally realistic feel to it; The waves are too rhythmic and lacking white caps. Could have been some marine life, even sparingly, littered about. The scene has a dead feeling to it without signs of life; Even some shadows of movement from below might be a nice touch.

As for the installation, I do appreciate the fact that there isn’t a litter of icons around the desktop if you don’t ask for them; And while there are no options for where to place the Start Menu icons, it at least doesn’t split it between two directories or still place icons in the root of the folder. There’s no pesky ‘screen saver manager’ which can only be used with the author’s screensaver to encourage you to buy more of their screensavers either.

Final Verdict

While this screensaver does offer a realistic look and feel to it, without at least anti-aliasing it does take away from the feel at the horison. Without marine life of some sort, the scene does look dead as well. Besides this, I feel that if you love ocean scenes, this screensaver would be great for free today. As for $17.95, I don’t feel it is worth it unfortunately. I’d me more willing to spend $4.95 or possibly $7.95 with the lack of advanced 3D support or higher detail/feel to it.

Posted by BladedThoth on Sunday, March 25, 2007