Customer Rating: 
Summary: Exercise in Frustration
Comment: The idea is that you go around seeing animals in the seas and oceans. There is a paragraph or two
available about each one.
A plot is added which is fair enough as far as game plots go.
/>People reviewing this game as a treasure hunt with areas to explore to look at animals are giving
this rave reviews.
There are many problems
1. The photo engine if flawed. Shoot ONE
roll of film only on an animal. Put your best photos from that shoot in your album and save.
Advance the game 24 hours without saving to see what your grade will be. If its not A then go back
to your last save and try others of your photos. If none of this works strongly consider skipping
that shoot. Go back to your last save and resumen the game without submitting a photo for that
shoot. (See most game sites on the internet re the problem with this game and photos.)
2. The
writer caved to mindless persuits. A shooting component is added. These are allegedly healing rays
to avoid complaints from animal lovers. Still you are mindlessly shooting light targets on screen.
The writer also added a defeat the big boss set of sequences. Swim in an S curve to a boundary. Look
just over that boundary into the sharks territory and shoot. Eventually you will heal / pacify them
enough to get things done.
3. There is a scavenger hunt component where you search the screen
for something shiny. This can be used to illustrate what is tossed into the waters. Ship wrecks
could be points to foster discussions of different ships, peoples and time periods. The writer
doesnt really go there. The ships are given a name. Little to no further information or discussion
is initiated. Books and paintings could be of famous works encouraging curiosity about those works,
the writes or painters, and the time period involved. The game doesnt really go there either.
/>4. Fish in the water are VERY fuzzy at times making it impossible to really tell WHICH fish is
there. The encyclopedia has crystal clear pictures and its possible to rotate the fish 360 showing
the game does have the data. Seeing a fuzzy blob in the water is not educational even if you can
click it and its labeled with a name until you move on.
5. No one arrives at an area and is
immediately the expert. Showing tourists around where they rapsodize about being at one with the
universe may be useful once or twice. More useful would have been having experts show up on a
partictular species or subarea.
6. The program could really teach about photography but
failes.
7. The program could really teach about SCUBA but fails to do so.
8. The game
could have a link to the internet where approved content is available for new information on
animals, plants, rocks, and formations, climate, weather, moon, stars, and tides. The approved
content could be add on modules for new scenes in the game. The game doesnt go there.
9. The
game has the capability to take as many photos as you wish so that you may keep information about
your travels on your computer. You may NOT move photos from your computer back into your game. You
may have an ideal photo of cherry grouper for example, but you are very limited in album space. The
game could insist on a fresh roll of film to show a photography tutor. Magazine submissions should
be from the best photo of that animal to date even if it must be uploaded from computer saved from a
prior swim in the game.
10. If you have two tours pending at a foreign location, you must fly
home between tours. Even if you could do several tours and do a photo shoot in one day, you may do
ONE thing only at a foreign site that is requested then fly home. Then you fly back to the foreign
site for the next thing. A flight burns a day each way. The writer seems to want to teach
inefficiency.
11.You may only submit ONE photoshoot in 24 hours. You will notice that the
writer deliberately does things to be annoying and to slow down progress. This may be understandable
in the treasure hunt / plot component. Photo shoots should be there to get familiar with a
particular animal. The writer should not block in any way the educational component.
12. The
writer wrote a time plenalty for looking in the encyclopedia. Game time travels faster than real
time so that you may begin leafing through the encyclopedia in the AM per the game and find its late
evening when you close the book. The writer should not stand in the way of learning. Save the game.
Look at the encyclopedia and restart. Go back to your last save. Such idiotic work arounds should
not be necessary if the writer was reasonable.
13. The writer plays games with photo locations
and animals. The writer places other larger or more colorful animals in the immediate environment
that will NOT move away for the immediate shoot no matter what you or other divers do. One small
animal is immediately adjacent to another. You touch it or toss it food to get it to move. You must
CLOSE your camera to do this. It moves a bit away. You reopen your camera and it has gone
immediately back. There is no way to net the animal or have other divers bait the animal or move it
away. Its again grounds to skip a particular shoot. You observe another animal swimming a pattern
for 10 minutes. You get ahead of the animal with the camera aimed across its path. It now changes
patterns. I have noted many animals do this in this game. This is one of the few games I have ever
seen where I have developed a STRONG dislike for a writer. In the real world with a TEAM of
photographers trying to shoot photos of an animal given several days of full time work, they may
come up with photos they like. THis...is a game...played by people who are doing this in their spare
time that is left after school, work, and other chores are done. Technically GETTING a photo should
be a dream on this game. Its for people to enjoy going around taking photos and exploring. Then it
should be for people to invite friends over and go do it all again. There are people that want to
relax and ENJOY taking photos. I guess there may be others that hope the writer is really a ... and
who wants to make that process extremely frustrating. I cant imagine they tested this game prior to
market and no one complained about this component when there are complaints all over the net about
photography in this game.
14. Information as to problems in the game should be specific. You
take a photo of a barracuda speeding past you. The shot fails because "the compositon was rushed". I
guess you could go up and SHOOT the barracuda with a double barreled shot gun. Its NOW lying on the
sea floor. The composition would at that point NOT be rushed if you THEN went up and took a photo at
your leisure of the dead body. The game gives no specifics as how to "unrush" the photo of the LIVE
animal. Try various tecnical iterations of on and off auto focus, positions of animal, zoom and f
stop to no avail. The game also complains that photos are "technically not correct". There are no
specifics. Try various views, zoom settings, f stops and the rating does not change.
/>Personally I like games where the game is logical and where the writer doent try to cheat on the
games behalf by hiding information such as what they REALLY want in a photo of a large animal.
/>
After a few photos and likely failing marks, the game does LATER have a character give some
simple rules. IF its a very small animal and you point the camera at it and shoot zoomed all the way
in with the animal at a desired point on the photo you can get an A. If its a larger animal you have
a very good chance of wasting one or more hours of your life getting failing photos. Even on
occasion the very small animal photos fail with no real explanation. "Its technically not
correct".
I like the overall idea of exploring and taking photos.
The plot and
characters are interesting.
Overall its seriously flawed.
When teaching I dont
send a learner out to do something unless or until I truely believe they are ready to go execute it
correctly. Judging from the photography issues and the instant tour guide issues apparently the
writer disagrees with me philosophically. There are some very nice beautiful components of this game
so its worth seeing. Seriuosly expect to find some frustrating components with the camera, and some
equipment such a boyancy compensators leading that list. While wearing the "stability" boyancy
compensator, I had the tendency to surface. Picture talking to a client IN The water on a tour
while gradually rising in the water. When the client would stop in front of me to say something I
would go from whatever depth to surface. Know that the writer pulls stunts like this. Dont use
equpment on tour without testing first. There is also no provision to discard flawed equipment.
Notice that you dive to 100 feet without proper equipment and any back up systems.
I
would rate this game a 3 on that basis as I believe the good portions balence out the seriously
flawed ones.
I have downgraded the game a bit further to counteract the reviews of
folks that opened the box, saw a diving sim and gave it 5 stars.
Customer Rating: Summary: Warning: Extremely addictive.
Comment: All right, let me start off by saying that I loved the first Endless Ocean game (Endless Ocean:
Dive, Discover, Dream). This one is every bit as good as the first one and better. This is a very
good game that has plenty to do. In other words, you will always have some goal in this game to
which you can aspire. Some have said that this game has a "slow-moving" story, but what you have to
understand is that the storyline isn't really important in a game like this. This is just a
free-exploration game.
Parents and kids will both love this one - and this game is
fun for gamers of all skill levels. My only real criticism is with the story's characters (which,
as I said, isn't really important). I love the story line, but the characters are rather... over
the top. They're quite melodramatic, and the Japanese developer's concept of Americans is rather
amusingly stereotyped.
That being said, the gameplay makes up for that. Some of the
people who are familiar with the first Endless Ocean game were probably curious about this ones ESRB
E-10 rating. I have to say that that rating is indeed merited; unlike in the first game, several
sharks and other species are actually a danger in this game, and extremely young children might find
that frightening. I think it adds a level of depth (if you'll pardon the expression) to the game
without making it difficult.
You will be able to explore the oceans of the world in
this game - where the first game took a limited view of a fictional island chain in the South
Pacific, this game lets you dive into waters from the Red Sea to the Arctic Ocean, and even into a
tributary of the Amazon River. The task of salvaging items in this game is defined very well, and
unlike in the first game, it actually has a purpose and is more lucrative (meaning you earn the
game's fictional currency for items you salvage). You can also train dolphins (a process which is
much more streamlined than in the first game), take clients on guided dives, take photos and send
them to fictional magazines, and even dive with a partner online and use the WiiSpeak microphone
(not sold with the game).
The graphics are just as stunning as in the first game, and
the soundtrack by Celtic Woman was just as great as Hayley Westenra's songs from the first one. The
game is highly educational, giving you (or your kids) the opportunities to learn interesting facts
about different species of marine life. Even if you've never played the first game, I would highly
recommend this game. It stands completely on its own and is not in any way related to the first one
except in title (the controls are also similar, but they are simple and are explained at the
beginning of the game). This game is an enormous improvement over a game that was already good.
"Blue World" is bigger, better, and generally a great deal of fun. If you buy this game, you will
quickly become an addict.
