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Everyone's talking about Advance Wars shipping yesterday, because it has guns, violence, fighting, competition and death: all the elements of an awesome game! At least, if you think of games in the conventional sense, where they exist to give you the feeling of being the main character in some sort of dumbass action movie.

Nintendo, as we're all aware, no longer gives a damn about that goal-oriented, completionist model of gameplay. They want to make games into, well, entertainment again, things you just play around and explore with. I'm pretty happy about this, myself, as most games present goals so vapid and asinine that they're hardly worth the time it takes to complete them. Give me a giant aquarium to play with and that'll entertain me a lot longer.

Endless Ocean is that giant aquarium, and it shipped yesterday. This is actually quite the controversial little game and seeing how its sales pan out over time (especially compared to, say, Advance Wars) is going to be really interesting. Check behind the cut for a round-up of impressions and critical reactions from around the 'net and the print world.

So, probably the best summation of playing Endless Ocean that I've seen online has come from the Penny Arcade guys, in the form of this comic strip:

Tycho also has a front-page post about Endless Ocean and its strange ability to cause any overworked, frazzled gamer to start feeling the stress of all those self-inflicted adrenaline highs.

While it comes up lacking in the classical assessment, it does embody other peculiar virtues: namely, the ability to put you into a Goddamned trance. Held upright only by the chair, I felt strangely warm as some force operated on my body, transforming the living parts into gel. I looked over to Gabriel, largely to determine if I still had neck bones. Draped over the chair like a coat, his leaden jowls hung open as his wrist offered up the bare minimum of game interaction. ...

I don't actually relax when I'm playing videogames. I don't find it relaxing. There's typically a lot riding on my unfocused attention: as many as thirty-two other people are relying on me to perform my duties in an utterly heroic fashion. Even in a Match-3 casual title I'm trying to see into the future, generating the preconditions of future success. The idea of a genuinely soothing game gestures at a wider medium than the one I typically focus on.

Ah, and for the classical assessment... scroll way, way down to the bottom of Endless Ocean's metacritic page and you'll see a staggeringly poor score attributed to, yes, my corporate masters at GamePro. Despite my inevitable objections, this is actually a very good review in that it completely sums up the heart-wrenching despair a game like Endless Ocean provokes in the traditional gamer (as does its 1.25 out of 5 score).

The biggest problem with Endless Ocean is that it lacks any sense of challenge or fun. It just simply plops you underwater where you're left to explore at your leisure; your scuba tanks are filled with an endless amount of air, all of the sea life is cuddly and loves to be petted. The only real challenge I faced in the game was not falling asleep while I was immersed in what turned out to be a virtual aquarium.

Your eyes do not deceive you; the writer is essentially criticizing the game for daring to exist. I don't understand the bizarre expectation among gamers that their titles transform themselves into graphically enhanced Skinner boxes, letting gamers mindlessly exchange effort and twitch for a false and ultimately meaningless sense of advancement (as represented by points, Achievement, cutscenes, what-have-you).

Put a traditional gamer in front of game where the goal is something so undefinable and personal as pure entertainment and the reaction is disappointment, dysfunction, fury. This doesn't suggest there's anything wrong with Endless Ocean; it suggests there is something strange and perhaps unhealthy in the traditional relationship of gamers and games, an unspoken need for virtual validation. It is clearly just not acceptable to this traditional audience to turn a game on, play, and then stop when you've had a sufficient amount of fun. Yet, there is no explanation of why this must be so, and perhaps they themselves do not know.

Of course, not every traditional outlet turned on Endless Ocean. For instance, while Edge UK gave the game a 7 score, the actual text of the review was astonishingly self-effacing and still managed to bring some critical thought to Endless Ocean's unusual game design.

Opening up your yacht, the good ship Gabbiano, bobbing gently on a dreamy lagoon, it's a sad testimony on our hectic times that the lack of a subsequent pirate, terrorist or zombie boarding party leaves us confused as to whether or not we are indeed playing a game. After months of shootouts and excitable gambols through space, Arika's diving simulator is much-needed gaming detox.

As with any cleansing process, the first few teps are always the toughest. Initial dips into the Manaurai Sea are a baffling mix of beautifully simple mechanics and over-enthusiastic handholding. While diving ease excites a desire to explore - your diver is fluidly drawn toward the Remote pointer - the constant crackle of the tutorial radio leashes you to the yacht.

Likewise, Nintendo Power was even more enthusiastic, awarding a 7.5 score despite a lengthy paragraph complaining about control issues.

The game's absence of goals won't please everyone. If you want drama, suspense, and action, you'll have to swim elsewhere. But if you focus on the journey rather than the destination, you may find yourself looking forward to exploring Endless Ocean over and over again. In spite of the game's quirks, I certainly do.

Finally, a typical online review is NTSC-UK's, which gets to be a bit more long-winded and is generally easier to please (8) than its print counterparts. There's a long paragraph about Endless Ocean's in-game camera function that makes me wonder if this game may indeed be the long-awaited Wii counterpart to the epic Pokemon Snap.

Additionally, it is just as rewarding to waste time taking photographs with your underwater camera, which is unlocked early in the game. It is such a simple idea, but one that provides hours of aimless entertainment. There is something gratifying about taking a beautiful shot, all of which are stored safely in the photo gallery on deck. There is rarely a reward for capturing a fine image (unless requested via e-mail), apart from your own satisfaction, but you will find yourself becoming creative, looking closely at the surroundings and waiting patiently for the desired effect. For instance: Imagine swimming underneath a circling White Shark, the sun shining reflectively above on the water's surface. You aim the camera up, waiting for the giant beast to swim into the right position - just in front of the sun's glare. Or imagine a shark drifting between the rotten rib cage of a fallen whale, or capturing an aerobatic dolphin just as it leaps out of the water. Each shot will be individual and unique to you. It is a shame, then, that there is a limit to the number of saved photos and that there is no option to share these captured images with friends. Such a missed opportunity.

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