The sequel to Vivarium's quirky pet-raising game Seaman was announced by Sega for the PlayStation 2, though without any planned release date in the English speaking world. As with the original game (released in 1999 for Sega's Dreamcast, and ported on the PS2 in 2001), the player will interact with an unusual creature through the use of a voice recognition system. Only this time around the creature will look more like a miniature Neanderthal man, and less like a... well, seaman (imagine what you will).

Vivarium's technology has since evolved, and according to the stuiod's president Yoot Saito, the voice recognition engine will actually work with complete phrases in Seaman 2, rather than single terms like in the original installment. Still, the microphone-enabled controller that was bundled with the first Seaman game (called Seamic) will once again be usable in the sequel.

Actual gameplay sequences are yet to be shown - probably next weekend at TGS 2006 - but in the meantime Sega revealed the premise in Seaman 2. As the story goes, a species of prehistoric mini-men were found to have lived in Peking China. A company in Moscow took their bones and created a factory to clone them and mass produce them as pets. Only 3,000 of them have been created so far, but guess what: you're one of the lucky first to own one.

Crazy games for playful crazy people...

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