System: Nintendo Wii

Publisher: Nintendo

Reviewer’s rating: ***

ESRB rating: Everyone

Game type: Exploration/collecting

Kind of like: “Animal Crossing,” in that you can just play around and collect stuff if you want.

Best feature: It feels like there’s a whole world out there waiting for you.

Worst feature: The graphics on the Wii don’t quite keep up with games on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

The bottom line: Looking for a relaxing game?

You can find it under the sea in “Endless Ocean.”

In this game, you’re a scuba diver who gets sent on missions to explore and find sea life.

The action of the game consists primarily of swimming underwater, looking around and touching things.

It’s better than that description probably makes it sound.

“Endless Ocean” really can feel endless. The game is huge, and there’s a tremendous diversity of things to find. Swimming around a huge coral formation and suddenly coming upon a whale really can be exciting when you’re playing. There are sharks, too, but they don’t attack you.

In the game, you have a yacht, which you can anchor wherever you want on the large game map. You can dive just for fun, or you can go into the boat’s cabin and read in-game e-mails to get hired to look for things.

Each type of sea critter that you find gets recorded. You can feed the animals underwater or touch them to unlock more information about them.

Taking on certain tasks advances the overall story of the game. Eventually, you can find treasure and sunken wrecks to explore.