Imagine being an ordinary guppy, swimming merrily along, munching on an occasional food pellet, just enjoying life, when all of a sudden, an alien pops out of nowhere to threaten your very existence. So is the life of all of the fish unlucky enough to inhabit the tank of Insaniquarium Deluxe.

In this game, you are given a normally simple responsibility: Take care of some guppies. However, there are many obstacles that make it less than desirable to be this tank's caregiver. On top of making sure all of the fish are fed properly so they don't die, there is the added stress of making sure none of the various types of aliens show up to try to kill off all the inhabitants of your aquarium.

At the beginning of each level there are two baby guppies floating happily around the tank. Your job is to feed them until they grow. Once they become medium guppies, you can buy more guppies to make your tank even more populated. As your fish grow, the work begins to pay off as they start to produce coins. The larger they get, the greater value of the coins they drop, but make sure you click on them before they reach the bottom of the tank or you won't get anything.

Once any of your guppies become large, certain upgrades and extras become available to help you along. You can buy a better quality of food, which makes you have to feed the fish less frequently, and besides, isn't it just nicer to give your fish the best quality? You can also upgrade the amount of food pellets you can drop at once, which is extremely helpful when there are lots of fish in the tank. A really helpful improvement is the laser upgrade. The better your laser gun is, the quicker you can kill those aliens, meaning less damage to your precious fish. There are also fun bonus fish you can buy. A carnivore is the first one available. He's a useful fish to have as he drops diamonds instead of coins, but he also eats up all your little guppies instead of the fish food.

Luckily, you don't have to do any of this completely alone. In order to reach the next level, you need enough money to purchase three egg pieces. This causes a creature to hatch that can be extremely useful in the future. Some of my favorites are Stinky the Snail, who trolls the bottom of the tank helping collect coins, Prego the Momma Fish, who randomly gives birth to baby guppies, saving you the money of purchasing them, and Wadsworth the Whale, who shelters baby and medium guppies from being attacked when aliens come around. Even aliens can't touch these great bonuses. The only problem arises after the third level, as you can only bring three helpers with you at a time.

Insaniquarium Deluxe really is, as its name implies, insane. As the levels progress and the egg pieces become more expensive, more fish are needed in the tank in order to accumulate coins and make sure they don't all die. This creates a frantic environment of clicking to distribute food, while at the same time trying to make sure you lose as few coins as possible. The aliens also get crazier and harder to defeat as time goes on. On top of all of that, though, this game is just fun. There is even a bonus level to gather shells that allow you to buy fish to create your own fish tank outside of the actual game.

I highly recommend this game for crazy, maddening fun. It virtually never gets boring, as the scenery changes to a new tank every five levels, there are new types of extra fish to buy, and the aliens vary every time. You, too can experience the madness by visiting PopCap Games: Insaniquarium Deluxe where the game can be bought for $19.95.

Helpful Hint: It came as a complete shock to me, but if you can keep a large guppy around for awhile, it eventually matures even more to become this great blue king/queen fish that drops diamonds.

Our Final ScoreExcellent

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