This was one of the few games which I have been really waiting for there release since I read about it a couple of weeks ago in the official Nintendo Magazine of Spain. And it was finally release here the 9th of November 2007.But like most things in life, I couldn´t get it that day. So this afternoon I rushed to my local softwareshop and bought the game. After starting up my Wii and the game my first impression was "Woooooooooooow, how beautiful is
the sea!".
If you don´t do anything on the startscreen, it turns into a kind of screensaver, and shows you all kind of places of the sea within the game. The background music could be a song taken from the of The Lord Of The Rings.
So after entering my name and sex (male/female), you can also change some basic things about yur appearance, like skincolor or hair. Nice, but I would love to see it a bit more option on that. After filling out the paperwork, I finally get to dive. Yes, you get thrown into the water the first minute of the game, where your femalepartner Catherine, who stays on the ship, tells you some basic stuff like the control and how to touch/poke a fish, how to feed them, etc,.... Than after the basic course you can stay in the water of go and take a look around the boat. There you can into the cabine and see if there is some email, save data or advance the clock (handy if it already late and you don´t like to go diving with a flashlight), later in the game you will get more option there like writing the boat, etc..
On deck you cango and dive, take break while enjoying the sunset (really, like if you were there!) and what I like, is that you can put a SD card in the Wii with your own music, so you can just hear your own music during your stay on deck AND DIVING, great detail!!!!
During the game you get some mision, like collecting fishes (making pictures of them),finding treasures and being a guide for other people.
What me impressed a lot is that the games is created in a way that you really feellike your in the water, you hear the bubbles of the airtank, if you ever scubadived before you´llremember the noise that "there is no noise, only your breathing and the airbubbles".
The details of the graphis are superb, there is an option to take a closeup on everything, and you just see all the little plankton floating by. When you hit the groud you see the sand flying up. Oh yes, what is funny that you even can go to the surface and take a lookaround...... And in my first 30 minutes there was a dolfin and a pinguin who tried to be myfriends,the pinguin is my friend,but the dolfin just swam away. You finally can train the dolfin and he can companian you on your trips. You also can give the fishes food, so they come to you and become your friend.... The idea of the game is that you also learn about the world down there. You will see a lot of fishes that you first dont know a thing about it, and during the game you get there names, where they come from, you even can take pictures. Which you will keep in a kind of logbook.
My little girl (5 Yearsold) tried the game for a couple of minutes and like it. She just when chasing the big fishes. She loved it swimming under the sealevel.
Now to get things clear, Endless Ocean IS NOT an action games, so whoever like to kill or race things, forget this game. Scubadiving never has been an actingsport (except if a shark is after you, hihihihi). I get the feeling the game is more like a relaxing one, it iscertainly one of its kind, if you ask me. Here you justgo and dive, find treasures, new kind of fishes. You must complete some missions like being a guide.
Final verdict:
-GFX: 9/10 ( It really creates the world of under the sealevel, you really get the feeling you are there)
-SND: 8/10 (ALthought there isn´t much of sound, it is well created and very well thought.PLUS the option of adding your own MP3 soundfiles is great....)
-GamePlay: 8/10 (this is a tricky one, as for an action games I would give it a 5/10, but if you know that diving isn´t shooting animals, than the 8/10 is the right score)
-Multiplayer: YES, I haven´t mentioned it, but you can dive with a friend. Just type there Wii-code and you can go with a friend dinving the Sea of Manaurai. There can be only 1 friend connected with you. A shame of Nintendo, because I get more the feeling that all the WIFI games are just P2P games, there are no servers where you can play againt 15 other people. But that is why Wifi at Nintendo is free. I haven´t tried it out. Maybe I should, so anybody who likes, we can set up a date.
Price/value: 10/10 ( the game costs 30€)
Overal: 8.5/10
In the picture above, you get a kind of an fishtank where you can put some fishes(even wales) in it and this way you can opserve the animals, just like in one of the StarTrek Movies....
I can recommend the game for people who always like to dive, but never could because of the expensive of it (like me, I only did it twice in my life)and forall those people who want to try it. If you like actiongames only, forget this game, it won´t be for you.
Well I hope you have enjoyed my 30 Minutes review of this game.If you like it then click on my reputation button on the left..... hope to make some other reviews very soon.....
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