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Beyond blue review5/30/2023 Each dive is packed full of exploration opportunities too and whether it be a shiver of sharks, lonely squid or tricky octopus, there’s a good amount of variety with these creatures and, more importantly than that, each behave exactly as they would in their natural habitats. This forms the crux of gameplay but along the way the banter between Mirai, Andre and Irina, along with Mirai’s difficult relationship with her sister, given enough emotional depth to prevent these swims feeling mundane or boring. This process continues until you hit the last cut-scene of that particular dive and return to your sub again. Once you reach that point, the view changes to a first-person camera where you rotate the screen to track a new signal in the ocean. Each dive sees you follow way-points to activate sensors or triggers in a bid to track down different species of whale or shark. The mechanics are very simple too but strangely addictive as you play through the game. There are 6 dives for you to participate in with the option of free-diving when you’re done with the story. To tell you what these moments are would spoil the experience, but suffice to say they’re easily the highlights of the game. Along the way you experience all the ups and downs the ocean has to offer, with the threat of mining hinting toward man-made destruction and some in-game set-pieces that work really well to add genuine moments of jaw-dropping awe. In constant communication with her team-mates Andre and Irina, Mirai searches the ocean and follows a pod of sperm whales she’s been studying, checking on their progress over time. The story here revolves around a free diver known as Mirai. With a largely positive, uplifting tone throughout, Beyond Blue acts as a celebratory look at our ocean and packs its play-time with an abundance of scientific knowledge along the way. It’s not as pretty or complex with its game mechanics but where Beyond Blue excels is in its desire to present something wholly educational a tool to be used to help people understand more about our ocean.Ĭlocking in at around 2-3 hours, Beyond Blue adds a light story to its exploration adventure, filling in some back-story for our main characters in a bid to give a simple enough reason for being in the ocean in the first place. Beyond Blue then is a very different experience to those two games. Subnautica came close – bringing survival mechanics and a genuine sense of fear and dread to the watery world, while Abzu brought the genuine wonder and awe thanks to its visual design and colours. It’s also a wondrous, dangerous and gorgeous backdrop that hasn’t always translated well to the video game medium. This largely alien world plays host to a large number of species and is crucial to the well-being and sustainability of our planet’s eco-system. With that in mind, it’s strange to think there’s still so much we don’t know about our oceans. Over 70% of our planet is made up of water. Around two minutes each, it was a great way to quickly learn about something that I would not have otherwise been interested in.An Educational & Peaceful Underwater Game They featured a wide range of topics about science and marine life. The mini documentaries were a good distraction to break up the repetitiveness of the game. I personally didn’t care about the ‘personal’ conversations but it did provide further background story to the characters. The navigation chair was a bit useless because it only allowed you to have conversations with Mirai’s crew and sister. I liked the ability to choose which song I wanted to listen to. The music playlist (which you can find on Spotify) features various artists with an overall ocean/water theme tying them together. Here you can find all the animals that you have scanned in the game, including their scientific names and information about their behavior. There are a few items that give a bit of a back story about Mirai’s family, but the main interactive items are the science log, a music playlist, a navigation chair, and 16 mini documentaries about science and marine life. Navigating the submarine can be a bit clunky.
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