Got this as a mystery steam code expecting a big title but got this and you know what? This is kind of a personal little gem of mine now. I'm not going to praise it to be the perfect game, it's JUST a game you can sit down and relax to.

Yeah, it hasn't got "Ryse: Son of Rome" graphics.
It's not a massive blockbuster story like the "Batman: Arkham" series.
It's not the generic fast action gameplay you get in first person shooters.

It's just a beautiful game for you to explore.

I highly recommend this

Although the main tag for this game is simulation, it's really more of a casual game, there is not much in the way of a true simulation here of diving other than keeping track of your air. All in all this is an extremely simple game. When you start the game you have basic equipment to use as you begin the first dive area. To progress in the game you must complete missions, of either finding artifacts or hunting fish or photographing fish.

Everything is pretty simple to figure out as well. The graphics are nothing special, passable I guess. Most of the missions are very easy to complete. The achievements are just as simple to get as the game is simple. There are two achievements however, that take a fair amount of grinding to get.

I cannot recommend this game for people who like to actually have something to really accomplish in a game, there just is nothing in it to feel like you are simulating diving really. And the missions add no amount of skill of playing a game either. It may be ok for children around 8-12 years old to play and have some fun with. Spearfishing missions are not really graphic as far as gory or anything.

After reading what this game is about, I was disappointed in what I've played and not because the game is bad in any way or form. It was just plain boring in terms of gameplay mechanic, and the simulation aspect of it all. Yes I actually just beaten this game and I banged my head against my bathtub wishing this was a more complex simulator but instead is an arcadey, tedious, and casual game that needs way more work If you're wondering why I am not playing anymore of this game, This is how long it takes to beat the entire campaign. I think this game can be better than what it is and heres why.

The game starts off with you looking at the map and seeing that there are 3 Large areas you can explore in the game, You'll start in Thailand then go to South Africa reefs, the last and final reef is the Bahamas all of which is decently sized and looks great.

The gameplay is about spearfishing, Aim your speargun at a fish, shoot, and watch it automatically get reeled in with camera gameplay and treasure hunting thrown in.

The missions consist of the player searching for treasures around the area, look around and shoot fish or find treasures for 5-10 mins, find specific fish, or take pictures of fish. These missions will repeat most of the time. You can kill so many fish but when it comes to sharks, turtles, jellyfish, morays, stingrays and so on the game will have a don't shoot box over them. When you do try to shoot them you'll shoot AIR. EMPTY AIR, even if the game says don't shoot I SHOULD HAVE THE FREEDOM TO SPEAR THEM FOR THE HELL OF IT. If I do so I should also be punished for it instead such as being fined, or sharks coming back to bite me off. Something instead of empty air.

The graphics to this game is quite nice and there is a good amount of fish to see and capture, the open area in the water and the underwatercave are pretty nicely done also and each of the maps are a decent size. The sound and music to this game is also nicely done HOWEVER

The mechanic and gameplay to this game is absolutely boring and unimmersive and also very arcadelike. It is very fun during the beginning of the game for about 30 mins then it just became repetitive and boring. Whenever you shoot a fish you'll acquire xp and gold which makes this annoying coin sound as if you're playing a slot game ruining the immersion of the game completely. After earning enough gold which takes about 5 mins or less of you swimming around shooting every fish you see in sight, you can then spend to upgrade 4 different things, your camera, more usb slots to take picture of fish, speargun accuracy and length, and your swim fins, once you fully upgrade all this. You'll swim at a really fast speed and any fishy you see can easily be minced meat basically because you'll become the son of poseidon himself. You're basically done and gold will completely become useless except for spending on more usb slots to take pictures of fish. Hell even the picture taking mechanic is pretty drysince all you need to do is point it as close to the fish as possible to take a picture as long as they are in the frame, the numbers also have to be 100% or you cant get points for taking thier pictures. Theres nothing in this game that can kill you except make you lose oxygen and there is nothing challenging about the breathing in this game at all, just swim to top and your oxygen can be filled fully without a single struggle, the only way you lose is when you forget that you're not diving but snorkeling.

I think the game could do much better than this in future sequel. I want to be able to control the pulling of the fish in, Taking the spear out the fish or cutting the lines once I hunt them, drag them back to the boat feeling the weight of hunting. Instead of just picking up treasures from the ground with one button players should be forced to brush off the sand and figure out how to extact the treasure out carefully. Also the fact that I should be able to shoot any animal I want and in doing so will have a consequence on my gold or what not instead.
If you're going to give players levels and XP in a game it should have a reason except that it was completely pointless. Right now this game has an awsome concept, but it needs to build on that concept and make itself AMAZING. I am not easily impressed because it was downright too simple, super casual.

If you think I am lieing Go download the game and play it, Congratulations you've basically played 80% of the game for free.

I also want to warn you guys of the dev pulling a fast one on bundle buyers which someone has come to my attention about.

http://www.reddit.com/r/GameDealsMeta/comments/2e9yqd/depth_hunter_2_has_been_greenlit_get_your_steam/
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=saxg1h&s=8

Long story short? Dev promised to try to get keys for people on desura etc, then turned around and rebundled game into a different name and in turn changed thier tune after getting greenlight. He didn't make a different game but took the same game and change its name so he doesn't have to give them keys. I would look up more about this company before you make your purchase in the future. This is something I do not condone from developers of breaking promises. Will not be buying anymore products in the future hell don't even send it to me for free.

+Great Graphics
+Good sized open area
+Shooting fish is satisfying
+Great amount of fish to shoot at
+Sport is Extreme


- Gameplay mechanic too simple, gets SUPER tedious
- Can't shoot jellyfish, turtles, sharks, morays, dolphins, crabs, urchins, reefs, sponges and the list goes on
- No multiplayer of any kind or score comparisons
- Missions are downright tedious and boring, Find treasure, shoot a certain fish, or search out a fish with waypoints showing you directly where the fish is. Sometimes the treasure quest tells you to search in a 40km area then becomes boring as sin searching 30 mins on the ground clicking.

My advice is to shelf out 10 more dollars, head to early access and get world of diving.

There is not that much to tell about this game: it's a very casual fishing/diving simulator, in which you spend all of your time underwater, swimming gently along some nice (sub-)tropical settings, mostly reefs. The gameplay consists of either catching the required fish, or of exploring the surroundings - either by taking "perfect" photographs of several fish, or by searching for lost treasures. There is a small element of advancing through the game, since you gather experience and money with every catch or find with which you can buy better equipment.

The main game consists of three diving locations, to which several can be added by buying the different dlc's. Every location can either be completed by fulfilling the different "mission goals" (which are mostly very basic), or can be just enjoyed swimming along in a free mode. This swimming, looking around and catching fish definitely has something very relaxing about it - this is the perfect game to play after a stressful day at work.

But the game does lack some features which would make it more attractive - I'd love to get some more information on the different fish swimming around me, and the diving-simulator part really is extremely basic. Everything is being handled automatically, which in a real-world dive surely would not be the case. Some element of action or even tension would have been incorporated here.

All in all, this is a game which offers just what it aims to do: a relaxing, nice experiencing, without any difficulty whatsoever. The Steam achievements are mostly easy to get, except for some overtly grinding ones (I don't expect too many people to spend 24 real-time hours underwater in this game).

Recommended to anyone looking for a casual, relaxing experience.

Right. Where do I begin..
I somehow managed to 100% this game. I regret it.
At first, the game seemed to be okay. It was a relaxing little game where you were swimming under water, collecting treasure and catching fish with a harpoongun.
It was only later I discovered its dark, dark intentions.

+PROS+
+Some of the 3D models look okay.
+The music is okay, but nothing special.

-CONS-
-The textures are.. It's just plain ugly.
-A crab poses a much larger threat than a shark.
-A very, very bad treasure hunting mission that can be very hard to do if you don't have a hawks' eyes.
-Very short game.
-You cannot replay the missions. The only way to replay a mission is to go into the game files on your computer and delete them.
-Only 3 maps.
-Small maps. You are constantly reminded that ''You cannot leave this area''.
-Collecting treasure is WAY less beneficial than catching fish. You almost feel punished for collecting treasures.
-Can cause motion sickness.

Right, let's get to my biggest complaint. I love to hunt achievements, and this game wasn't gonna be an exception.
It started off okay. Collect some treasures, catch alot of fish, travel some great distances, take alot of photos. When I had beaten the game and gone out of my way to get a few, I was only missing one achievement. 'Captain Nemo'.
This is the worst designed achievement I've ever come across.
The game tracks how many SECONDS you spend under water in the game. You get the achievement once you've spent 86,400 seconds under water. Also known as 24 hours.
This wouldn't have been so bad if there was ANYTHING to do once you beat the game. You can't even go back and replay missions. There is seriously nothing for you to do besides just swimming around, so you just have to idle the last 20 hours. But that is where the real problems start.
First of all, you can't alt tab. Doing so will pause the game and the seconds will no longer be counted.
Secondly, if you purchase the full lungs upgrade, you can be under water for a total of 15 minutes before you have to go back up to the surface to catch air. If your oxygen goes to 0%, you go back to the title screen.
So what you are left with is that you have to sit in front of your computer with the game running, and swim to the surface every 14ish minutes for 20 hours.
It was the most boring evening of my life.
I did read up on some exploits that froze time ingame, but it didn't work for me. Nor does it fix the problem of the game having to be open the entire time.

By the time you are reading this review, the game is long gone from my hard drive and I am most likely getting treatment for PTSD.

First I tried to play this game in German, but there are sooooo many translation mistakes - partly hilarious, but I switched to English. As I said the graphics are pretty. The controls are "okay". You can try to play this game with your controller, but this is hard. The assignment of keys is unintuitive. You pick up things with the same key, which you use to take photos or shoot your harpoon. The length of the story is 3-4 hours. I got nearly all achievements within 3 hours, but all Trading cards dropped after 4,3 hours.

Overall this game is way too easy. There is no challenge. I want a game which is more like the diving sessions in Assassins Creed IV (+ hunting fish). This would be a great diving Simulator. I will NOT spend my time to collect 500 coins or 100 treasures, hidden somewhere on each map in this game. Same with my 2 remaining achievements: "Spend 24 hours under water" WHAT THE F*CK! "Swim underwater for 100km" NOPE!

This is an entertaining Diving Simulator (for 3 hours!) Don't try to get all achievements. This is frustrating.
Buy it in a bundle, or while it's cheap.

6/10

Missions can be easily bugged and you might have to waste another 30 minutes to find things which are not there. For example, there's a quest which tells you to find a unique fish and catch it, which there's only ONE of it. If you have caught it already before the quest is active, during former quests, you will never be able to catch that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fish. Also, there's another quite similar example which can occur while finding 10 treasures quest. You'll never be able to do that quest either if you get one of those treasures before the quest is active.

About rest of things, graphics are fine for indie game and gameplay might have been better but it's okay too. Story NONE.

Edited to correct grammar mistakes and mispellings.

Great game if you want to just kill some time and relax. Music is soothing, game play is simple. If you want to take pictures, hunt for treasure and just enjoy swimming around with the creatures of the sea then, this is a good game. However, maps are small and more maps are in the version of DLCs. You have limited underwater wildlife you can hunt for and sharks don't attack. In game upgrades are all purchased with the gold you find and the credits you earn while playing the game by hunting the fish and the like.

I really can't give this a rating because, this is the first underwater game I've played of this type that I can remember. I'd have to play more of them before doing so. All-in-all, I'd say it's worth the time and money if you like these type of games.

It does have a few missions in the game for you to accomplish so, it's not all just swimming around in the beginning. The missions don't seem to be mandatory but, completing them allows you to unlock more upgrades.

Edit: As for more maps, I have 3 maps plus 2 after buying one DLC. Not sure how many maps there are in all though? 5 maps are a lot of exploring. So, from what I can tell so far is, 3 of the maps are mission maps, the first three. The DLC maps are for exploration.

2 more maps come with this DLC: http://store.steampowered.com/dlc/248530/


I would also like to add that, all the pictures you take in game with the camera, it has a feature in your menu to view them and/or, make the as desktop wallpaper. That's cool. :)

It's basically an aquatic themed hidden objects game in 3D.
Story / missions are trivial. Don't upgrade your radar, so that the locations of treasure items don't get spoiled. Prolongs gameplay.
Tricky end-game+ is finding all the coins which don't show on the radar.
In the end it's like watching fish in an aquarium (in a positve calming way).
Has nice underwater locations to discover/explore (coral reefs, caves, wrecks, ruins etc.)

All in all nice little game. Perfect for 15min zen meditation chill out before going to bed.
Buy when on sale. Only two DLCs give you additional 3d locations.

This is a very pleasing game. As casual as can be...nothing really attacks you or anything (except for those bastard crabs, but whatevr, lol). Basically, you swim around catching fish, finding treasure, and taking pictures. You can automatically turn those pictures into screen savers if you like, which is a nice feature. You can upgrade your various gear as you gain cash via all the aforementioned activities. There are also quests which are basically catch x amount of this type of fish, find this many treasure in an area, etc...

Essentially, the game just gives you a nice relaxing experience with soothing music and beautiful visuals, with some stuff to do to ehance the experience. You can unlock free roam via completing areas, which then gives you total freedom to just check stuff out.

At this point, I have finished all the area quests, and probably will get the 95% accuracy achievemnt in my next playthrough. That said, I'll probably keep this one downloaded for those times where I really dont know what I want to play or just want to unwind a bit.

Very much recommended. Probably 8 speared fishies out of 10 with a photo of a blue whale mixed in.