There’s plenty of fish in the sea…

But of all the aquatic life in the virtual video game waters, we wondered which one of them was the absolute best. In our year-long quest to find the Greatest Animal in the History of Video Games, we nominated a list of animals and had judges decide on the top aquatic animal who would represent its species at the end of the year.

And who, pray tell, would be able to choose the best of best in the virtual undersea universe? Why, these fine folks of course:

• Tofuburger, co-founder of cultural phenomenon/funny animal picture blog I Can Has Cheezburger

• Morgan Gray, senior producer at Crystal Dynamics

• Nick Chester, editor-in-chief at Destructoid

• Leigh Alexander, writer for Gamasutra and her blog Sexy Videogameland

We asked the judges to choose their top three picks and rank them. After tallying their votes, the winner came out to be… Ecco the Dolphin! There were no overlaps in choices save for Ecco, so second place went to Gyarados of the “Pokemon” universe and third was a ridiculous four-way tie between Wind Fish, Del Lago, Seaman and the 7th Colossus.

As for the Readers’ Choice… you guys chose Ecco the Dolphin — hands down. There were an overwhelming number of reader votes for Ecco, who evidently made an indelible impression on many a gamer (including Denis Dyack).

See what other choices made the judges’ list and which judge was the only one who didn’t choose Ecco as their number one pick…

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Forget the landlubbers.

After our panel of judges and readers chose their favorite horse and canine, we decided to take our year-long search for the Greatest Animal in the History of Video Games under the sea.

To qualify to be on the list of nominees for the Greatest Aquatic Animal in Video Games, we decided on any creatures that dwell in the water — whether it be dolphins, sharks, fish, whales and any other type of monster or boss we’ve run into during our gaming experiences (and note — turtles will come later on with reptiles).

However, we know we’ve forgotten some, and we encourage readers to tell us their favorites for consideration. At the end of the month, our judges panel will choose the winner, and we’ll also name readers’ top choice.

From protagonists (Ecco) to bosses (Del Lago) to common foes (Cheep-Cheeps), here are the nominees. Without further ado…

Bloopers in the “Mario Universe”
Bloopers are squid-like enemies who follow Mario around relentlessly in order to kill him. They’re typically found in underwater levels, but have been known to also fly through the air and even appear on dry land in some games.

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I was half-serious, half-joking when I threw my arms up victoriously while playing the new Wii game “Endless Ocean” this morning.

I had spotted a humpback whale, swam my character in Nintendo’s underwater safari snorkeling simulator toward it, petted it, and then grabbed onto its back to hitch a ride. It was all rather pretty. Majestic, too.

But also… I don’t know… what am I doing playing an underwater safari snorkeling simulator?

As is often the case with Nintendo-published games, I got a copy of “Endless Ocean” a few days before its official release, which comes next week. And with Wii games, my curiosity still gets the best of me. I had to try something like “Endless Ocean” right away.

“Endless Ocean” is 100% new-Nintendo.

You can find little better proof that the company has changed its priorities in recent years than in comparing the first water-based games for the Nintendo 64 and GameCube with this first one for the Wii. Those older consoles first got wet with installments of an action-packed jet-ski racing series called “Wave Race.” The Wii takes its first plunge with a remote-only mellow swim through the sea.

Observe “Endless Ocean”’s back-of-the-box selling points: “Simple controls, no time limits, and serene exploration!”

They printed the exclamation point, though I’m not sure it’s warranted.

This game is so laid back that you can put your snorkel-er on auto-swim and just point where you want him or her to go. Once there your options are to point at fish, poke at fish or even pet the fish.

Oh but there was more… (!)

(Note: All pictures for this post were photographed off of my TV. Lo-fi, folks.)

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