Depth Hunter 2: Deep Dive was part of a bundle of games via Bundle Stars. I'd never played the first one, and it shares a similarity in the title with 'Depth' yet is a completely different genre. There appears to be an iOS port, and thankfully the PC version feels smooth and native.

Put on your snorkel and dive into the ocean for a relaxing time hunting for treasure and catching fish.

Depth Hunter 2 has a really easy going pace. There are mission objectives but you can spend your entire time idling through the three ocean zones as you wish. Sharks do not attack, coral will not rip you open, and there's thankfully not a stonefish in sight.

Instead you have the deep blue of water and the muddy grey/green of the rocks. God-Rays shine down and ripple across the ocean floor while small globs of plant/algae-debris float in front of you. Ship and plane wrecks act as set pieces (sadly only one is explorable, and there's not much too it). The whole game is just really pretty, even if the dolphin model looks sub-par.

Once out of your boat (fixed, can't control) and into the depths you are slightly limited by oxygen levels that restrict how long you can remain submerged, though you'll have to go out of your way and deliberately drown to cause a fail state. And even then you just reset onto your starting boat ready to dive again.

I've a nice change from many games with the dreaded 'underwater' level that is nothing more than an excuse for a time limit and dodgy movement mechanics.

The game has three main areas to explore and you can do them in whatever order you wish. I found the second zone taking up most of my time, aside from getting started in the first...

In each zone you have a few mission objectives to complete at your leisure and there is nothing to stop you exploring outside of them. The first task is to find a piece of treasure that others noted was in the area. And finding this... Was hard.

You are given a vague idea on what to look for and told that it exists within 40 metres of a waypoint. So go diving and good luck.

When I started I found various coins and other pieces of shiny things but it took a good 20 minutes of searching before I found what I was after. A bowl hidden half buried in the sand near some coral. To be honest finding this first piece was more annoying than it should be and yet does teach you how to 'play'. That is: Swim slowly and take the world in.

Apparently there are bubbles on collectables that appear now & then but none of these showed up for me. Sometimes I would see a glint of metal for an unrelated piece of junk but for main quest items you are on your own.

That all said. It does begin to feel easier and I was able to upp my pace and finish off the objectives faster. The fish collection can also be exploited in that you just collect everything near you and eventually what you want will spawn into the map, rather than swimming around and waiting for one to generate on its own.

Once you learn to relax and learn the maps it is very chill. I found myself turning on a couple of podcasts and just lazing around the map collecting the various coins and loot that have dropped and somehow fitting a huge amount of fish into my hammerspace swimsuit bag.

It is not meant make any sense really, and the 'story' stops after a few objectives anyway.

Coins, Fish, and Loot all give you a little XP. Levels do not really mean much aside from giving you access to upgrades for spear, speed, and oxygen. Lie back in your chair and just take in the beautiful blueness of the ocean. There's a camera you can buy and take photos with, it makes up some achievements and gives you XP per each fish you shoot that the steam overlay screenshot will not do.

And really, this is all it is to it. There's not much to interact with in the base game and yet this feels okay. Any frantic action or combat would be really out of place with what they are trying to do here.

Looking for a very lite game and love the ocean? Depth Hunter 2 is a great choice to try. Looking for an action game? Avoid... But you may like the change of pace it provides.

My one complaint is that the steam edition has two very grindy achievements. Let's just say that you just need to be in the ocean for one of them and not submerged. Use the window_mode Rclick taskbar trick and have it run in the background to get your 100% completion rate and you're done.

Game Acquisition: Bundle Stars
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Thread: 1 - 28 May 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2.7 GHz
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: NVidia GeForce 8800. ATI equivalent. Intel Integrated Graphics HD3000
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 920 MB available space