Killing sharks? 3 silly games that have nothing to do with diving.
My son has hundreds of games on his smartphone. I watch him every now and then; it's amazing to see how quickly he moves his fingers and how easily he finds the right button without knowing how to read. He's very active, plays sports, and spends a lot of time outdoors, with friends and in nature. When he's at home, I try to limit his digital time and always have him do traditional things that border on child labor: washing my motorcycle, cooking, setting the table.
However, I don't want to hinder his natural inclination towards new technologies, also because I like them too.
Among his various games, he's always had Hungry Shark, the video game developed by Future Game of London and Ubisoft. Hungry Shark has become a cult among young people, and I see him running around with a grey shark, eating everything in sight, including, unfortunately, a few swimmers. He's already had the opportunity to dive with sharks and is well-informed about their true safety. However, I'm concerned about the impact the game might have on him.
So I decided to look for other scuba-related games, hoping to find something more educational. I searched the Google Play Store and downloaded three: Swim Simulator, Scuba Diver Underwater Stage, and 3D Scuba Diver.
The first two open with different program names while the third 3D has nothing.
Swim Simulator becomes “Beach Simulator Deep Sea Dive,” Scuba Diver Underwater Stage becomes “Secret Spy Survival Under Water.” These are impressive titles, certainly more so than the games themselves, which aren’t the best graphically either.
I want to install and test them before recommending them to him but I will end up after a few minutes eliminate them even from my device.
I play for a few moments, then annoying ads often appear, which are too long for me—about 30 seconds each—before I can continue. Then banners and more videos appear. And when the videos end, the missions invite me to kill sharks while avoiding being killed.
Even in these games, the killer shark is the common denominator, and scuba diving is just a pretext for shark hunting. With tank on my back and speargun in hand, I have to look around, finning in all directions, searching for sharks.
Goodbye Swim Simulator, Scuba Diver Underwater Stage and 3D Scuba Diver, with one click they leave my phone.
Killing sharks seems to be a popular sport, and if it is in some countries, it will surely piss off other divers like me, who I advise against using these games.
Some screenshots from the games
