Fishing for Fun

If you're feeling emotionally tender lately -- worrying about the recession, or politics, or the sad demise of a celebrity -- "Endless Ocean" is like a chill pill to put your mind in meditation mode.

It's the niche-iest of video games. Actually, it's not a "game" so much as it is a simulation of scuba diving in blue, tropical waters. All you do is swim, look at fish, pet fish, feed fish, and befriend dolphins and penguins.

When you pet fish, you reach out and rub their little bodies. You know they enjoy this, because magical little sparkly lights float around their contented heads.

You have a job to carry out, but only tangentially. The whole reason you're able to afford this life of lackadaisical lounge-about-ery is some charitable foundation is paying lucky you.

Your mentor is the marine biologist, Kat, a "fish whisperer" who hangs out on your boat and appreciates this career outside of the nontraditional economic structure.

"I think I'd go crazy if I had to work in an office," Kat exhales.

If there's a goal, it's simply to move your boat around to lagoons and deeper waters and conduct topographical inspections on behalf of the charitable organization.

You also pick up odd jobs serving as an underwater guide to men and women who need a scuba escort. You point out fish, and the clients tell you how awesome you are. Easy-peasy.

One client, a female model, basically asks you to point out only the small fish kicking about under the sea.

"It's cute, because it's tiny," she beams.

If you're feeling super idle, you can just sit in a beach chair on the deck of the boat and watch the calm waters, the green islands and the blue skies bobbing in front of your lazy eyes.

"Endless Ocean" clearly isn't for everyone. It was released in Japan last year to mild acclaim, and it is now picking up good reviews in America. Even so, I don't blame a few critics who think it's boring.

I would probably think it's dull, too, if I were in the mood only for action-adventure. But I found this Wii game at a tender moment. I just wanted calm, peace and no scary music soundtracks.

I had less luck finding tranquility playing "Fish Tycoon," a creative but more intensive game that puts you in the role of fish store merchant.

In "Tycoon," you feed and breed fish in store tanks, and treat them with medicine when their scales get yucky. If you dig puppy simulation "games," you might like "Tycoon," since the mechanics are similar.

But stocking aquariums with sunken ship ornaments and growth hormones doesn't do it for me. Neither does watching my pink spotanus croak, because I'm a bad fish grower. What a bummer.

So it's "Endless Ocean" for me, with its emperor angelfish, bicolor parrot fish, pyramid butterflyfish, endangered humphead wrasse, and on and on. Plus, I can hang out with the African penguin wobbling around on my boat. It's cute, because it's tiny.

("Endless Ocean" retails for $30 for Wii -- Plays calming. Looks very good. Easy. Rated "E." Three stars out of four.)

("Fish Tycoon" retails for $20 for DS -- Plays fine for a pet simulator. Looks fine. Easy. Rated "E." Two stars.)