When I was a kid I watched every Jacques Cousteau special on TV. I wanted tobe a marine biologist when I grew up. At the age of ten I declared my intent to join the U.S. Marines on the shaky premise that the word "marine" appeared in both titles. Eventually I came to understand the different meanings of the word and I never joined up. Nor did I become a marine biologist.

I’d Like To Be ... Under The Sea

Fortunately, Endless Ocean (a Wii game from developerArika) lets me indulge my desire to explore liquid space withoutleaving the comfort of my family room.

The game casts you as a diver who is given a chance to explore thefictional Manaurai sea. A young woman named Kat (who is afraid of thewater) introduces you to the basic controls, gives you a simple assignment, and teaches you how to dive.

The wheelhouse of your dive boat serves as the main menu for the game and offers functions like saving, cataloging photographs, receiving in-game messages, and navigating to new areas of the Manaurai sea. Out on the deck, you can talk to Kat, lounge in a deck chair,listen to music on a boom box (including .mp3 files that you put on an SD card and insert into the Wii), and meet the occasional bird or sea mammal.

Endless Ocean doesn’t offer a overriding goal, but Kat will give you assignments that take you to interesting underwater locations and move the game’s slim storyline ahead. All of these involve moving the boat to some location and diving. The simple underwater control scheme involves pointing the Wii remote in the direction you want to go and holding down the ‘B’ button to kick. If that’s too taxing, you can press the minus button for auto-kick. You also have the option ofswitching between an over-the-shoulder and first-person perspective. The uncluttered first-person screen gives the game a real "you are there" feel.

Peace Beneath the Waves

This is where the game shines. Viewing the cliffs, corals, and cetaceans beneath the waves put me in touch with my inner eight-year-old explorer. The marine flora and fauna are utterly convincing. It is impossible to feel stress during one of these simulated dives.

Part of this is due to the fact that nothing can hurt you in Endless Ocean.You can’t get the bends, you can’t run out of oxygen, and even the sharks are happy to see you in the sense of so-nice-to-meet-you instead of so-nice-to-eat-you. The reclusive giant squid is hard to find, but will never mistake you for the Nautilus and try to drag you into the depths. It’s a little like going to Disneyland in that it presents the illusion of an adventure without any real risk.

Just like at Disneyland you know you’re being coddled, but you simply don’t care. You’re having too much fun to worry about realism.

The friendliness of the game makes it appropriate for players of any age. The simple control scheme can be grasped by even junior divers, the content is non-objectionable, and the nothing-can-possibly-hurt-you design guarantees a frustration-freeplaying experience.

An Educational Experience

Also like Disneyland, the programmers have slipped in a little education. If you reach out and stroke, tap, or feed a fishyou’ll be rewarded with a shimmer of light and a tidbit of information. Interact with a particular species often enough and you’ll learn all about it. Everything you glean is automatically added to Kat's encyclopedia of marine life.

Your assignments include leading tourists on dives, exploring underwater ruins, and placing sonar sensors in hope of tracking a unique and never-before-seen species of whale. While you’re diving you’ll also encounter the occasional human artifact such as a section of pottery or the pieces of a broken compass. After the first few missions you’ll be rewarded with a digital camera which you can use to take pictures to store in an album or submit for publication in in-game magazines.

You won’t run out of photographic subjects; the Manaurai sea contains virtually every possible oceanic environment. You’ll explore caverns, find a ghost ship, and even dive on a very Titanic-esque wreck.

If photos aren’t your thing, you can collect fish for an aquarium. There are limits on the number of fish you can keep at any one time, but the aquarium allows you to dive in and swim withyour captives.

Should you tire of swimming alone (or with computer-controlled tourists) you can buddy-dive with a friend who has a Wii, Wifi access and their own copy of Endless Ocean. You can see the same sights at the same time, but there’s very little interaction beyond that.

Can’t Stop The Music

Your dives are accompanied by the hiss of your regulator, but that’s usually lost in the game’s unearthly soundtrack. All of the songs in the game are sung by Hayley Westenra. Her recording of Prayer is used in the advertising for the game and also as one of the primary in-game songs. It is beautiful and moving ... the first four or five hundred times you hear it.

Which brings me to my only real complaint about Endless Ocean. When you begin a dive, you can pick a song. Initially, your list of choices is somewhat limited. As you make discoveries, you are rewarded with new songs. However, the song you pick at the start is repeated over and over and over while you dive. If you’re underwater for thirty or forty minutes you’ll have heard your three-minute selection often enough to memorize the lyrics and lose your mind. Fortunately you can use your own music on an SD card. Unfortunately you are still limited to one endlessly repeating song.

In the larger picture, that’s a small annoyance.

Endless Ocean delivers an experiential game which takes you to a new and exotic place, teaches you a few interesting facts, and connects you to your inner Cousteau. Not a bad feat for a game thatruns a mere $30 and is accessible to players of just about any age.