Nice moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of a few of our favourite gaming reminiscences.
Dave the DIver
Developer: MintrocketYear: 2023
Once I first sat all the way down to play Dave the Diver I hoped it will be my new nightly zone-out sport. All I actually knew was that it was an journey sport the place you went fishing through the day and served your catches in a sushi restaurant at night time. That each one sounded enjoyable within the kind of repetitive and senseless approach I used to be searching for, only a busy little sport to play for an hour an evening after an extended day. Mind off, fingers on.
It did not prove that approach in any respect. Dave that Diver is likely one of the finest video games of 2023, largely as a result of it is something however a senseless button-mashing time-killer. Certain, you dive into the identical patch of ocean each morning and serve prospects the fish you catch each night, however it’s a sport that’s unrelenting in its quest to present you one thing new to do nearly each time you play it.
Catching a seahorse ultimately results in a seahorse racing and administration sport. Assembly a personality opens up a farming system for rising additional components. There are stealth missions. Speedboat chases. Collectible playing cards. Boss fights. Music rhythm video games.
Fairly rapidly I had so many new actions it felt onerous to search out time to, y’know, go fishing, which is the principle exercise of the sport. Fortunately sufficient a personality I met launched me to those large fish-breeding tanks so I may gather fish eggs and begin rising my very own fish to make up for the times the place I did not have time to catch fish in individual. That, too, led to a brand new administration system as I hatched eggs and picked up fish non-lethally to breed larger high quality fish to make use of as new components.
Regardless of being an informal fishing sport it may really feel a bit overwhelming. There have been instances the place I merely did not wish to be taught one thing new. I simply wished to go looking for shrimp as a result of my restaurant was having a shrimp-themed sushi night time. Then one thing would inevitably occur, like a psychotic “environmentalist” attacking me in a mech go well with, or a girl asking me to search out the shark that had killed her husband, or a rival chef throwing down the gauntlet of a sushi problem. I would sit there staring on the display pondering, please, please simply let me shut off my mind and swim round catching shrimp tonight.
However even once I wasn’t ready for what Dave the Diver was serving up, I at all times discovered myself rapidly having fun with it, whether or not it was being chased by way of undersea tunnels by an indignant ocean god or sneaking by way of a manufacturing facility stuffed with gunmen like I used to be Stable Snake or fixing puzzles with a merman in a long-forgotten temple. Catching shrimp may wait a bit. I used to be finally pleased to have one thing new to do.
There are many video games that begin off easy and slowly introduce new methods and minigames and actions as you play, however usually after 5 or 10 hours they degree off and you’ve got realized nearly the whole lot you want.
Dave the Diver, splendidly, by no means ranges off. 15 hours, 20 hours, 25 hours in, it was nonetheless throwing utterly new stuff at me. Heck, even once I completed the story after about 30 hours, Dave the Diver nonetheless wasn’t carried out: it even gave me a brand new exercise to be taught and play through the credit. Really, it is a sport that by no means needs you to show your mind off and mindlessly click on.