Endless Ocean
Nintendo Wii
Rating: 2.5/5
Endless Ocean is a scuba-diving simulation for the Nintendo Wii console that, unfortunately, fails to provide enough stimulation to sustain gamers’ interests.
In its quest to make video gaming accessible for the masses, Endless Ocean assumes the operator of the Wii remote has the IQ of a small fish, and dictates your gaming experience to patting, nudging and feeding marine life, all while swimming slowly around visually uninspiring regions of a fictional ocean known as the Manaurai Sea.
Nintendo has described the game as an ‘experience’, but failed to add that it is a mundane one.
Kudos to Japanese developer Arika for trying something new – I can see marine enthusiasts lapping this title up.
But everyone else will simply turn a pale colour at the prospect of doing basically nothing underwater.
Gamers use the Wii remote to point where they would like their scuba diver to travel, all while keeping an eye out for new species of fish to ‘discover’.
In addition to the small fry of the ocean, there are whales, dolphins seals and more.
Heck, it’s the greatest simulation of scuba diving you’ll ever experience, and Endless Ocean did inspire me to want to try scuba.
But that didn’t make the game enjoyable and, to be perfectly honest, its incredibly slow pace, futile online mode, lack of two player split-screen and low-resolution graphics failed to tantalise my senses.
But my biggest complaint is the game is far too simple for anyone to enjoy.
The problem with video games to date is that while the premises of many games have tempted non-gamers to indulge, the complexity of the control system has always been a barrier to enjoyment.
The Nintendo Wii with its motion sensitive remote has, in my opinion, broken the barrier.
But instead of offering simple-to-control, hard-to-master games that will mentally stimulate and challenge minds both young and old, Endless Ocean is mind-numbingly boring.
There is no challenge in the Wii remote, no challenge in discovering fish and, as such, no true incentive to continue playing.
I couldn’t take the game online to the Nintendo WiFi network because I didn’t have a friend with a Wii who owned the game.
When I told them about it, allowed them to play it, and tried to convince them to purchase it upon release later this month, they merely laughed.
There is no offline multiplayer either – a killer blow to anyone wishing to enjoy the game with family members, as I can tell you, watching a mind-numbingly boring game is even more tedious than controlling it.
There is nothing to ‘play’ as such in Endless Ocean – just a big, blue yonder to discover.
But lo and behold, the freedom factor is cut short when your diver runs into an invisible wall.
Each dive has a radius from the boat that I found to be very limited given the emphasis on exploration.
There is also no map on screen to help you find your way – gamers will instead have to hit the 1 button, stop swimming and work out where they are before resuming their dive.
Try Endless Ocean – you know the curiosity of what is perhaps the slowest, most relaxing, yet consequently boring title is eating away at you.
But just make sure you hold on to the receipt.
Don’t be fooled by the big, blue depths – this is a one shallow title.
