Endless Ocean’s concept is simple enough: you take on the role of a diver and explore the waters of the fictional Manaurai Sea. One of the game’s key aspects is that you can do as little or as much as you want. There are no dangers, no time limits or any difficult tasks; you can explore at your leisure or just sit back and watch the fish swim by. In order to progress through the game though, you’ll need to interact with the local marine life and categorise them in your research book. To do this, you simply select the subject of interest, and start patting them until you gain their trust. You won’t necessarily gather all the information about a creature in a single dive and you’ll need to revisit them on numerous occasions, and after multiple encounters, a dolphin will begin to act as your diving buddy and accompany you on dives as well as perform tricks.
We're curious if you can name the dolphin Ecco or Flipper.
To break up the exploration, you can also undertake various missions. These include guiding tourists through shipwrecks, taking a photograph of a certain fish and locating lost items. As you accomplish each mission, new areas slowly become available to explore, as well as new accessories that will enhance your diving gear - such as the ability to dive to deeper depths. You’ll be able to change the time of day which creates a new outlook on locations and the sort creatures inhabiting them such as sharks and squids. Eventually, you’ll even acquire your own aquarium which you can fill up with the marine life you’ve come into contact with.
Given the game’s laid back nature, it comes as little surprise that it is played with only the Wii Remote. The controls are fairly basic: press B to swim and point the Wii remote in the direction you want to go to. If your finger gets sore from keeping the B button pressed down, you can also activate an auto-swim function by pressing the minus button. In addition, when you interact with large whales you can press both the A and B button to hitch a ride on their backs.
You’ll also have a range of equipment at your disposal. There’s a neat paint function that lets you highlight areas of interest on your map, as well as a compass to help you find your way around. As you explore a new area, your map will gain more detail and even automatically highlight caves and shipwrecks with a dolphin icon.
We're looking forward to just floating there, watching the fish swim by.
Visually, the game is putting the Wii’s hardware to great use. The ocean environments are rich in colour and feature some outstanding lighting effects, and character animation has been well done. It has been noted by some critics that the draw distance is quite limited, but this may be for realism reasons rather then any technical limitation. Staying true to the game’s relaxation theme, players will be treated to the calming sounds of Hayley Westenra including 'Prayer' and her rendition of the Maori folk song, 'Pokarekare Ana.' Also available to players is the option of playing songs that are stored on their SD card which is feature we’d like to see more often.
Endless Ocean also supports online co-op play via the Nintendo Wi-Fi network. The mode includes a simple messaging system where you can select a pre-written message using the D-Pad. Unfortunately, you’ll need to exchange Friend Codes with someone in order to use the feature, but on the plus side, you can store up to 42 friends.
Endless Ocean definitely isn’t a game for everyone. You can explore the depths of the ocean at your leisure, interact and view information on a broad range of marine animals and even create your own virtual aquarium. It’s certainly provides a different take on what constitutes a 'game' and will likely prove to be one of the Wii’s more interesting titles. Endless Ocean will be available in Europe in early November while an official Australian date is still pending.
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