We've taken the official ANR spaceship, The Lakitu III, back to the Wild Planet for another round of unadulterated fun, with little to no chance of unnecessary adulteration in sight. Not while I'm captain of this ramshackle vessel!

Loyal readers might recall that the initial explorations of Wild Planet revealed them to be an exceptionally diverse company, with interests branching out into spy toys, backyard water toys, asphyxiatingly pink girly toys, and a good handful of cute, pseudo-animal toys called Aquapets. For the full scoop in the inner workings of these charming little beasts, visit the older article, as there's little good in repeating myself. Since the writing of that article, the Aquapets have evolved into a third wave of creatures, and expanded to include the more monsterish LiquiFreaks and some representations of actual animals from the upcoming film, Madagascar.

The LiquiFreaks have been designed for children who aren't interested in the nurturing, caring nature of the original Aquapets. Instead of, say, getting a pet dog, these are the kids who'd presumably rather find a recently-smashed dog at the roadside and peel it open to find out what exactly went wrong. I'm of the type that enjoys keeping deceased creatures in bottles and jars for future observation and biological exploration, and while this kind of thing does not earn many girlfriends, it places me one step closer to genetically engineering an insect to plant inside of girls' heads to MAKE them like me, and that's really what matters, ultimately. Of course, this revisited nature of the LiquiFreaks, as opposed to the Aquapets, necessitates a revisitation to the original Tamagotchi Theorum, which is as follows :

"As children have an inherent need to explore the act of caring for another less intelligent animal than themselves, and dogs oft pee on the new carpet, it is allowable to supplant a surrogate creature in the place of a living one for purposes of convenience. Said creature will mimic the simpler of the basic life functions of any real creature, and since children are themselves simple creatures who also oft pee on the new carpet, this will be a sufficient method of nurturing the child's exploration of these urges in a non-invasive way."

Conversely, or complimentarily, "As children are inherently cruel and ignorant about the true mechanics of life and sometimes eat crayons with aplomb, it becomes necessary to allow the child an effigy of sorts on which he can both take out his manipulative aggression and explore the nature of life without endangering himself or those around him. Using said methods of misdirection, one can retain hope that the child will remain manageable for a prolonged period of time, unless he chokes on a crayon, which is just natural selection anyway."

Instead of the options of feeding and playing with the little guys, one has the option of feeding and, well, electroshock treatment, which the monster seems to genuinely enjoy at some points. Adorable chirpings have been replaced with belchings and roars, the happy jingles are replaced with tunes more apropos to a darkened lab, and the monster seems much more intent on breaking out of its confinement and ripping out your toenails in your sleep than the pastel, pacifist Aquapets. Among your LiquiFreaks selections are your typical giant eyeball guy, the underwater robot, the ever-popular conjoined pustules, and the fanged triclops. Pictured in this article is Mumpster, the ill-fated triclops whose teeth never stop growing, in some kind of endless overexpanding skeletal curse. Eventually, he'll eat his own eyes against his will, but that's just nature for you - a big, green jerk.

The addition of monsters to the Aqua-world is a welcomed one. Sure, they're still CUTE monsters, completely devoid of open wounds, oozing appendages or parasitic worms crawling from various bodyholes, but they're monsters. And everyone likes monsters.

The third wave of Aquapets brings us, among other things, Snorkl. Snorkl is, apparently, an eviscerated heart who is assigned to the cruel fate of being a non-water-breathing creature kept in an underwater environment, but that's okay, because he's got a snorkel, and I have no reason NOT to believe that this solution wouldn't work with any pet one wishes to keep.

(Animal [any] + snorkel + staples + aquarium) - detection by the proper authorities = love 4-eva.

I thought I'd have more to say about that, but that's probably impossible. Included in this assortment, among others, are the baby, the encephalitic butterfly, and the happy fireball. Adorable all.

Finally, we come upon Gloria, an obese hippo from the upcoming movie, Madagascar, who is also inexplicably retained in a small, aqueous bubble as another example of completely unnatural habitation. Of course, they spend most of their lives in water, but they're certainly not equipped to breathe it. With this kind of logic, I suggest we keep pet mice in toasters and our dry cleaning at the center of the Earth. Just for giggles. Gloria is accompanied by a jungle beat, along with the typical Aquapet eating and playing functions. I've not see the other Madagascar Aquapets yet, but they're all of thinner body types. Gloria seems almost tragic in her proportions, and maybe it's just the low sample batteries, but her lumbering, slow movements, barely contained in the bubble, are sadly comical.

Poor hippos. Nature's primary source of ridicule, placed on the planet for the sole purpose of making me feel better about myself. Sure, your name might mean 'river horse', but you're not fooling anyone. My name means 'unrelenting love machine', and we can all see how accurate THAT is. Sure, you secrete a pink oil to keep your skin moist - that doesn't make you any different from me, except mine comes from my nose. Yes, you babysit the babies of other hippos. Yes, you can eat 100 pounds of vegetation per night. You, however, are not an expert on me, and I have a certificate PROVING that I'm an expert on you. Who has the upper hand NOW?

So, go out and get an Aquapet, of whatever variety. They're non-invasive, interactive little curiosities, and enjoy them.

Okay, let's finish this Wild Planet article up already, right? We've got one more thing here that the ol' charmers at Wild Planet sent over (along with a picnic blanket, a water bottle and some gummy snacks shaped like fries and pizza!), and that thing is Tek Tag, which could best be described as Full-Contact Lazer Tag... which is basically just 'tag' I guess. The point is that you get to smack someone within the bounds of the game.

Tek Tag consists of two green pod-like devices with elastic straps. These can be strapped to just about any part of the body with an arm-like circumference or less. This rules out my disproportionately masculine and toned legs, my supergut, and my relatively human-sized cranium. Leaving this within the realm of body parts that I don't mind getting smacked around, let's stick with the arms, shall we? The object of the game is to tag your opponent's pod a whole bunch. With two game variations, this either must be done as many times as possible within a time limit, or a certain number of times without a time limit.

This is all well and good. They take 3 AAA batteries each, have bright red LED displays and fun lazer-explody sounds and are easy to set, but it's clear that they have been designed for the younger set. Nothing makes you feel fatter than when you can barely stretch an elasticized band around your arm. I mean, it's elastic, which implies 'one size fits all', right? Add 'except for you, fatty!' onto the end of that and you get the Tek Tag pod. I managed to strap one on and set it up for a game before losing too much circulation in my drawin' hand.

I think that it's fairly vital to note that these pods are not exactly touch sensitive in the sense that a simple contact will set them off. They must be slapped, or abruptly jarred in some way before they'll register a hit. There's the issue of, well, missing going in for a tag, which inevitably results in a slap to the skin of your opponent, after which I either run home crying and tell my mommy or unleash a volcanic, pent-up rage at being ignored by the girls for so many years and someone gets their left eye Tagged permanently. I believe that it's important to set up some ground rules before playing this game regarding accidental slaps and bruises which may be incurred. I certainly don't think that the game is unsafe, but the sensitivity of the pods might be just a bit too low to prevent minor injury. Of course, you could always set up a game with a cute chick and have plenty of fortunate 'accidental contacts'... just play nice.

Add these pods to various sports games, or get 2 sets to strap to your body and add more dimensions of play to the whole Tek Tag setup. Use them while making sweet love, or in a barfight, or as percussive instruments. Throw tennis balls at them from across the room, in a lonely display of Tek Tag solitaire. The possibilities are endless.

Wild Planet has a few defensive and offensive suggestions for gong all hardcore ninja on your opponent, but I think I might have a few that are a bit more effective than their 'Tek-Fu' methods. I mean, emotional crippling is fair play, right?

The fun of a full-body sport and exercising one's natural agility can't be denied. It's the perfect excuse to act like some kind of Tek-Ninja and better your slow-sitted, pork-limbed opponent in a true show of superiority. There's nothing that says 'I'm better than you!' than the ability to steal someone's kidneys and sell them on the black market before they can blink an eye.

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