I’d love to go diving someday, but I’d probably not get to do more than a day of diving on a vacation. This game is about as close as I’ll ever to living a worldwide underwater documentary.

This is a game that builds your underwater imagination and gives you true adventures. Movies and video games teach our kids that there is no adventure without stuffing every moment with action and explosions. Instead of shoving entertainment down a kid’s throat, this game brings back memories of exploring the woods behind my house when I was younger and creating my own experiences. Those who’ve already been brainwashed into modern movie ideology might find it too dumb because of it’s lack of violence or their type of “action”, but imaginative kids will have exciting trips into underwater worlds!

It’s fun to play, and the only violence is when a shark or something attacks (and you subdue them in a non-violent way). I could swim for a few hours in the area I’m in now and not cover the same ground twice! The little bad I can say about the game is really irrelevant compared to the good!

The good:

-large areas to explore with lots of stuff to find.

-goals and freedom. A better non-violent sandbox game than animal crossing! (ok, low violence)

-while the graphics won’t knock your socks off, they’re great wii graphics.

-I like the relaxing music. A lot of people say it’s new-agey, but I think of new-agey being all synthy and blobus. But it just seems to be relaxing music that fits the pace of the game.

-$30. I mean really, this is a full game being released at a budget price.

The bad:

-The story isn’t so amazing.

-No spoken text.

The not sure yet:

-There’s some fantasy in the special tool you have to heal and calm fish and the story has some supernatural influences. At first I thought I thought the stuff took me out of the reality of the game, but the story and the tool are starting to grow on me.

-You don’t swim very fast. But this both relaxes you and adds more tension to when you’re low on air (even though there isn’t much of a penalty to run out of air).

-Haven’t had time to try the multiplayer, but I hope to soon! I’m sad that you can’t complete the game co-op online, but it still sounds cool.

A small note is that I was concerned because the box’s ESRB rating says “mild suggestive themes” for playing with my nephews and nieces. I looked it up on the ESRB website and the mild suggestive theme is: “And a collection book containing information about constellations and legendary Greek gods includes the following passage: ‘Apollo, god of the sun, was deceived by the raven, who acted as his messenger, into believing that his lover had been unfaithful to him.’” So there seems to be no real “suggestive themes”.

I’ve only had this for today, so I know my review is only based on the beginning of the game. I promise to update in a week or so when I’m much deeper into it. But, I do suggest you pick this up while it comes with the free wii speak since the wii speak is currently $16 alone. $30 for both is a steal!
Rating: 5 / 5

As soon as I saw that there was going to be a sequel to “Endless Ocean”, I got my pre-order for it in right away, and I’m glad that I did!

This game is just what I was hoping it’d be: it offers improvements on the graphics seen in the first game, but the game play itself is just as tranquil and soothing as it was in the first “Endless Ocean”. There’s no waiting around or need to “unlock” anything before you get introduced to the cool and intriguing sea creatures you’re hoping to encounter. I opened it and started playing yesterday, and, after logging about two to two and a half hours of playing, I’ve already encountered a leafy sea dragon, a whale shark, a weedy sea dragon, a tiger shark, batfish, humpbacks, West Indian Manatees, Manta rays, humphead wrasses, and California fur seals, just to name very few of the beasties I’ve “swum” with.

The game now offers the option of using the Classic controller, in addition to the traditional Wii remote, and the tutorials for each are very thorough, and make game play very easy. I don’t know if I’ve just gotten better with navigating through the water without so many superquick flips that disoriented me in the first game, or if the creators just opted to make the controls less hyper-reactive, but either way, it’s definitely an improvement.

I do wish that the game creators had opted to add a few human voices in with the new characters, as opposed to just sticking with the captioned speech bits, but they didn’t, and it’s really not a big deal. I have to say, while I’m mentioning cons, that I found the opening credits listing creators, editors, CGI folks, etc., to be quite self-indulgent, but the graphics have been improved enough that I can forgive them for doing it, since you’ll only be subjected to it until you save your game for the first time! ; )

Really, if you liked the first one, I honestly can’t imagine that you wouldn’t love this one. If you’ve never played the first one, and are looking for a different, non-violent, soothing game play experience, at the release price of thirty bucks, I just don’t think you can go wrong. And, for those of you that’re able to score the box that includes Wii Speak (which is the one that I got), you can either look at it as having gotten a thirty dollar Wii Speak for free, or as having bought a Wii Speak and gotten a pretty sweet brand-spanking new game for free. It’s a win-win, either way!

Have fun “diving”!
Rating: 5 / 5