Beyond Blue Reviews

glub glub fish

Great idea, good visuals, but as a game this is a disappointment. The female protagonist looks like unisex being in the suit, instead of freedom there is constant orders and the tech plays bigger role than the nature. Such a misunderstanding.

It has plenty of animals and good graphics. There are also many areas to play in.

need more like this, i love diving games. I still havent found one as good as the game on the Wii tho...

As a marine biologist, I loved swimming through the ocean and discovering species. I absolutely discovered everything lol. Overall, this game is pretty cool. It's hard to get to the beach since being in a wheelchair so it's nice to live vicariously. Though I have swam with orcas, humpbacks, dolphins, jellyfish blooms, rays... all kinds of things that are in this game! I think this game does a great job at teaching about the ocean without being boring. You get to swim around in the ocean with animals, which is the fun part of marine biology, and can look further into facts about the animals if you want to in the menu (but don't have to). There is a main story line about research and endangerment that is interesting, but no choices to make. Also, for anyone that is stressing, you don't have to worry about anything attacking you in the ocean. I have only one complaint: they should have made you explore in the sub in the deep ocean, not freediving. I can get on board with the idea that we've invented some kind of breather (although I don't see why we couldn't have just had oxygen tanks) for shallower ocean dives, but it's simply never going to be reality that we can just swim around freely in very deep water. The pressure at the bottom of the ocean is too big of a hurdle for a suit, but add to that the heat of hydrothermal vents? I've seen the equipment that goes into hydrothermal vents and it's no joke- it's hard to make anything that survives that temperature. Just given that the rest of the game is so realistic, it felt really odd to have just the suit technology not be realistic. Why not show people what it takes? It's actually really cool science. The ingenuity is impressive. Also, just for anyone that is finding the ocean interesting, this game is skewed toward "characteristic megafauna", which means big things with recognizable faces that people can see and more easily feel for. I get it. Most outreach does that. It's a choice and that's fine. But as a researcher of tiny things, I suggest looking at all the invertebrates and non-animals that were left out, which are imo, the most interesting creatures with the most diverse ways of existing. TLDR: Worth it for swimming around with ocean animals

Beyond Blue is a huge disappointment in the ocean-gaming world, after having completed the main story and trying out the newly released content, it is easy to say that this game flopped in many aspects. The coral reef environments in-game severely misrepresent what actual coral reefs look like in life, here they look lifeless, baron and boring, not to mention some incredibly strange coral-like structures that look nothing like actual species of coral. This game is just filled with boring dialogue and a ton of back and forth missions doing the same thing over and over. There was a severe lack of structure and closure in this story, coming to a "close" with Ocean Doomism, leading players to believe the ocean is hopeless and is inevitably going to die and perish. While it is nice that the bonus content is free, this game would've been better left untouched; The free content is difficult to find, you have to access it through the Main menu under the "Activities" category. There is only one activity they provide and it is nothing more than a huge disappointment, it is just a swim-through hoop "race" with a myriad of bugs, it took over 6 minutes to complete the "race" because of a lack of a sprinting function. It seems like this content was sloppily slapped together as a response to the release of Endless Ocean luminous which is also an awful ocean game, however it is miles better than this one. If you are planning on purchasing this game for the new content, DONT, you will regret it.

WTH happened to this dev team? They created a 3D engine to tell a story and give knowledge about ecology, it was linear and very tutorial like but it was fair. Now, they decide to create a lot of things, give us game functions and bring us a lot more of underwater experience and pleasure. I don't get it! It's generally the other way around... Kudos for managing to do this!

This recommendation comes with a caveat. Technically, I found it pretty good - graphics is nice, animations too. Environments are convincing and immersive. Fauna is varied and interesting. And I am fascinated by underwater games and diving (not diving IRL). I feel that they have achieved what they set out to do, hence my recommendation. I just wish they had been a bit more ambitious. As a game there is just not much too it. No risks, no challenges, no rewards. You can explore, and follow the (very linear) story. The story is bland, the dialogue unnatural. There is just too little to DO. Very few gameplay mechanics, other than walking/swimming around, clicking things, and read about them. No replay value, at all. I would LOVE a more open-world style diving game, where you can explore and learn about different biomes and lifeforms. But with actual challenges you have to overcome - with real risks and rewards and skill/gear progression. This isn't it, except for the exploring and learning part. But I feel a documentary would do a better job at this. Why choose a videogame as your medium, if you don't utilize the features that makes it so unique - choice and challenge?