'Endless Ocean: Blue World' - Game Review

Pros: Pretty, lots to do.
Cons: Not very challenging.

It’s hard to know how to describe Endless Ocean: Blue World. A scuba diving simulator? An underwater Tomb Raider? An interactive nature documentary? A really easy adventure game? A very long music video for the band Celtic Woman?

Perhaps it’s all of these. Whatever you call it, Blue World is a lovely, peaceful and surprisingly engaging underwater adventure.

In Blue World, the player takes the part of a college student (who can be either male or female) who gets a job with the R&R Diving Service, which leads tours, salvages sunken treasures and supplies magazines with undersea pictures.

In the game’s story, these activities take a back seat to unraveling the mystery of two strange artifacts left behind by the deceased father of Oceana, the granddaughter of the diving company’s owner. These artifacts lead you to sunken ships and submerged ruins as you travel from the Arctic to the Amazon in search of a fabled treasure.

All of this is just an excuse for you to jump in the ocean and look at fish, and the wonderful thing is how thoroughly enjoyable that is. Swimming through the water at a leisurely pace you see an astounding variety of ocean life. Schools of fish swarm past sea turtles, jellyfish float in place, manta rays and dolphins slide and glide past.

There are also hostile sharks and hungry piranha, although attacks do little more than increase oxygen intake, giving you less time underwater. You can also surface to explore small islands and ice floes where you will find birds and polar bears. Clicking on creatures catalogs them and gives players informative text, making the game unobtrusively educational.

Blue World has lovely graphics and creates a believable undersea world. Drowned castles are presented with the fanfare of old temples in the Tomb Raider games, and it is entrancing to watch a pride of whales drift by while the celtic-pop soundtrack reminds you, at times perhaps too fervently, how beautiful it all is.

While the story focuses on a treasure hunt, the game offers many other activities and side quests, such as a search for a talking bird or a mission to find and cure some injured fish. You can earn cash by giving guided tours of the ocean in search of specific creatures, selling photographs and finding treasures with a scanning device. Treasure prices are not always well thought out; I would say a flat screen TV found buried at the bottom of the ocean would be worthless, but in the game it fetches more than most jewels. Apparently the game takes place in magical water that does not rust or corrode.

Money can be used to buy better diving equipment that lets you stay underwater longer and to buy items to decorate your island home base, many of which open up new side quests. You can also buy decorative items like colorful wet suits. For some reason, while you can change what you wear under water, down to wearing a bikini in the Antarctic, you have no choice in what you wear on the island.

Side quests and treasure locations can be found in a book on the base island that is continually updated with new tasks. There are a lot of quests, some very intriguing, but for the sake of a timely review I focused more on finishing the main plot. It was hard to fight the temptation to wander off and look around, but that’s the hardship of a game reviewer’s life. Once you reach the story finale the game does not end, and players are free to continue curating a major aquarium or training dolphins to do tricks.

Completionists can also try to catalog every fish in the ocean, some of which will only appear in certain areas at particular hours or during special weather conditions. You will be assisted in these quests by your choice of diving partner. At first you simply travel with Oceana, but later you will have the option to dive with a treasure hunter who makes salvage easier or a dolphin who will let you ride him when you want to cover ground quickly.

All these tasks give the game a wonderful, open quality, but what makes Blue World better than the original Endless Ocean is its rather hackneyed but enjoyable story. The first game simply tossed me in the water and said, go do stuff, and I got bored quickly. The sequel pulls you in with promises of mystery, treasure and vast ruins and lets you discover the joys of aimless wandering and playing tour guide at your own pace.

While the game’s challenges are often too undemanding - Blue World’s puzzles would be easy even if the game didn’t handhold you through them - and basic navigation can be a bit too challenging, especially in small caves and underground chambers, the game is too charming and likable to critique harshly.

Adventure, simulator or music video - it doesn’t matter what you call the game. What matters is a wonderful adventuring spirit that makes you never want to come up for air.