Everblue 2

This quirky scuba-diving adventure won?t attract a fraction of the interest that hit titles do.

Combining the collecting and adventuring angles of Animal Crossing and Pok?mon with first-person diving, Everblue 2 is surprisingly addictive fun. You play as Leo, a master diver on a Caribbean island who navigates through the local town by steering a cursor around the screen. The locals give you jobs to recover sunken oddities, and an overarching story line pits you against a corporate salvage firm in a race for a mysterious treasure. Once you dive, the game thankfully switches to a first-person view, replete with teeming ocean life and a variety of sunken ships to explore. You?ll harvest an astonishing array of items, photograph the sights, and monitor your air and depth. If you let yourself be charmed by the game?s baldly na?ve and happy tale, completing all the quests can take on a feverish urgency. Cynics will grunt and hastily return to Vice City.

Despite its impressive depth, this game is no masterpiece. The cursor-based town interface is irritatingly archaic. The syrupy, incessant music grates agonizingly, and the complete absence of dialogue is lame. The undersea worlds can be pretty, though nothing about these graphics will raise your eyebrows. But the diving becomes quite enjoyable, and if you?ve ever done it in real life, you?ll appreciate its authenticity. Everblue 2 sure isn?t for everyone?or even for that many?but if you find yourself intrigued by its premise, there?s enough quality adventuring here that it can almost become an obsession.

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