Endless Ocean Review

Endless Ocean Story

There's not much of a story in Endless Ocean, but what story there is will keep you just interested enough to finish that story. You join a boat run by Kat, who is a scientist looking to catalog the ocean's creatures off of Manoa Lai. She gives you basic instructions on what you will do, but the bottom line is that you will interact with the ocean animals so that she can add them to her encyclopedia. After starting out with the easy stuff, you will then have the opportunity to explore deeper parts of the ocean and to discover more ocean creatures.

Freestyle

What may or may not appeal to some is the free-roaming nature of the game. You don't necessarily have to follow Kat's wants and needs, similar to the open world experience you get in Grand Theft Auto. You can dive at your own leisure and explore everything how you want to. Since there is no set structure, it is very possible that you will be bored after a couple of hours. You will pretty much do everything there is to do within those couple hours despite the hundreds and hundreds of animals you can interact with and add to Kat's logs.

Safe Diving

Controlling your little scuba guy is really simple: point your remote at the screen and hit 'B'. That's it. Point and go. Interacting with the aquatic life is also that easy. To acquire information about a particular fish or whale, you have to pet it. Now, don't go thinking that's weird; that's just how the game goes. The more you pet it in the few days after first meeting, the more information you will obtain on it for Kat.

Monotony in Endless Ocean for the Wii

The biggest fault that can be said with Endless Ocean for the Wii is the monotony. As mentioned before, you will see and explore everything interesting in the first few hours. If you want to see everything and help Kat with her studies, then you will have to push through the same point and go motions with the remote and the thousands of petting opportunities for information. The best recommendation to play Endless Ocean is to not play it for long periods of time, because you may get ocean sickness for the repetitive gameplay.

The Good

Endless Ocean is a very different game than anything that's come out since Seaman for the Dreamcast. There is not a specific target audience for this type of game, but if you had to narrow it down, Endless Ocean is a simulation at heart and that's all. There is no danger of being eaten by sharks, falling off of the boat and hitting your head, or worse, eating bad sushi and getting sick. There's just no danger, so there's no reason to rush through the game to finish it. You can take your sweet time getting everything Kat needs and seeing everything you want to see. The graphics are beautiful and vibrant, just as an underwater world would seem; it's like Finding Nemo without the plot.

The Weird

It must be a fantasy world where you can swim straight up to a shark and pet it. Either a fantasy world or a video game. Scuba diving isn't as easy as pointing and going. Trying to fill a book with underwater life information isn't as simple as petting those creatures. Endless Ocean actually does have some limitations, so it's not that endless.

Endless Ocean Review Conclusion: For Something Completely Different

The control scheme for Endless Ocean for the Wii fits the Wii Remote well and it is easy to pick up. With a weak, but interestingly enough storyline, Endless Ocean will appeal to those gamers looking for something different than the violent video games, or just for something entirely different altogether.