“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

To some, it’s little more than empty words but, to others, it might as well be considered gospel. For Eclipse Games’ Lightfish, it’s very much the latter.

Lightfish utilises the basic concepts made famous by Qix or, for the younger generations, the art class minigame from Bully, and implements them in a way that lies somewhere between loving homage and blatant copy-and-paste job, and the results are generally good, albeit almost completely devoid of originality.

Just like its aforementioned forefathers, Lightfish sees players using a mouse or game controller to fence in ever-growing assortments of aquatic creatures bouncing across the screen at various speeds. The basic premise is to gain control of over 75% of the screen in as little time as possible, all whilst attempting to avoid having the fish make contact with your lines-in-progress. It’s a simple idea that makes for some rather addictive and surprisingly compulsive action, whether it’s for several hours or the few minutes it takes your flatmate to discover the venomous arachnid you hid in his clothing pile.

Reimagining successful gaming ideas of the past isn’t a new phenomenon, but Lightfish’s close abidance by such an established formula only seems to draw attention to some of the shortcomings that it might otherwise have got away with. Graphically, the game really isn’t anything to shout about, and the so-called ‘fish’ are virtually indistinguishable from any other coloured sprite etched crudely on the back of a student’s exercise book. Fiddly, often unpredictably responsive controls don’t help things either, and the impact that a minor involuntary twitch here and there can have on your chances of success becomes controller-snappingly evident during the later, less forgiving levels. And that’s not to mention the lack of online leaderboards, an omission that’s as baffling as it is disappointing.

The game does sound nice, though, thanks to a dreamy, effervescent soundtrack. OK, you can always turn it down and play your own music if you like, but you’d be missing out on a pleasant array of drifting melodies that can easily lull you into a sense of passive nirvana after a stressful day receiving eloquent death threats from angsty customers at the shop. It’s still fun to pick up and play, regardless of its lack of invention.

The single-player mode packs a meaty punch as far as content is concerned, and there’s plenty on offer for players of all abilities. Its pizzazz lies in its simplicity, and that’s what gives it a fighting chance of drawing in gamers old new, borrowed and blue. If a game can entice anyone from little Billy down the road to Papa Smurf, it’s probably doing something right, and if that isn’t some sort of seal of approval, what is?

Lightfish is what it is: a bare-bones reboot of a well-respected idea, and you can take it or leave it on that very basis. Anyone looking for something groundbreaking and revolutionary will be best served by staying away but, for everyone else, trawling under the sea with Lightfish may yield a satisfying, relaxing experience. It may not be fixed, but that’s because it was never truly broken.

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