Eight Video Games with the Vibiest Water
By: Maggie Chirdo
Tags: Culture, Video Games, Water, Gaming, Gone Home

Lego Marvel Super Heroes

Xbox 360 (2013)

Captioning this skyline pic as “New York is alright sometimes.” Screenshot by author.

Slip slop, slip slop, slip slop. I miss New York City in a desperately shallow way — I’ve rewatched Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, genuinely considered a New Yorker subscription, and liked every video of subway rats on Instagram. The persistent ache for concrete and glass led me to download yet another Lego video game this summer, set in a fictional, condensed Manhattan. Lego Marvel Super Heroes is incredibly low-stakes, and when you’re not battling Galactus or rescuing cats for fake New Yorkers with perfectly cheesy accents, you can swim around the island. Your little plastic arms pinwheel through an uncharacteristically unpolluted Hudson River, accompanied by what sounds like a horse trudging through mud: slip slop, slip slop, slip slop. It’s a mindless, unproductive motion that lowers the heart rate and scrubs the brain clean of any pesky thoughts. I’m sad it didn’t make this list of best water sounds in video games.

Life is Strange

Xbox One (2015)

Art via Florent Auguy.

Water is Gay!!! The sneak-into-the-school-pool-after-hours-with-your-best-friend part of Life is Strange is so desperately, youthfully sweet. No matter the darker storylines running through the game, in this moment you are a teenager momentarily relieved of the (imagined?) pressure of being a teenager. As Max, the girl who can rewind time in short bursts, you dive in next to your rebellious, blue-haired partner and forget the world outside.

Jaws Unleashed

PlayStation 2 (2006)

Incredible, the shark can use ID cards. Screenshot via Moby Games.

GameSpot named it 2006’s “Worst Game Everyone Played.” And that’s a fair assessment: Jaws Unleashed is awful and addicting. I say that without having touched it since 2006. The game wrongfully demonizes sharks in the same way the films did. What saves it from total obsolescence is that gamers get to play as the eponymous shark, murdering beloved whales and marine biologists indiscriminately. It’s a bloody, inaccurate game with low-res graphics and yet…putting yourself in the shoes (nay, the fins) of a villain will always hold some dark curiosity. If you ignore the “fish are friends, not food” guideline from Finding Nemo, the game is worth an angry afternoon in the Atlantic.

Viva Piñata

Xbox 360 (2006)

Rain rain, stay awhile. Screenshot via Dave Gamble.

You don’t swim in this game, but piñata animals with names like Quackberry and Chippopotamus do. Your job is to beat the ground of a farming allotment mercilessly with a shovel, then scoop out ponds for these delightful creatures. The game, which also came out in 2006, is the antithesis of Jaws Unleashed. It is peaceful, you spend the entire time raising, mating, and protecting alternatingly adorable and nightmare-inducing creatures. But the best part (even better than growing turnips to feed to mouse-like piñatas who live in a clock) is the days it rains. Soft sheets of water coat the world, delighting your hydrophilic residents, mellowing out the rest, and drawing patterns in your carefully dug ponds.

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game

Xbox 360 (2011)

The blurriness here is part of the terror. Screenshot via SSDD2K.

Okay, you got me! I’m not a gamer, I’m an influencer in the pocket of Big Lego. But seriously, the best part of this game is that when you swim out too far, a shark launches from the depths to swallow your little plastic body whole, temporarily condemning you to Davey Jones’ locker for daring to test the treacherous tide. It serves as a low-risk confirmation of our collective, sensible fear: the ocean hosts an unnerving array of deadly, uncaring beings.

Kingdom Hearts II: Atlantica

PlayStation 2 (2002)

Goofy is a sea turtle! Screenshot via Laser Time.

Number two in the water is gay category: the level in Kingdom Hearts where you turn into a merboy and get to hang out with Ariel from The Little Mermaid is god-tier. The way the seaweed sways in the water, the pleasant Muzak version of “Under the Sea” on a loop, the blueness of it all! As someone who had a crush on both Sora and Ariel, you’ll never catch me complaining about how hard (and scary!) it is to defeat Ursula at the end.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Xbox 360 (2006)

If I had to be drowned, this is the spot. Screenshot via Steam.

Oblivion (or Skyrim, I guess) is one of those games where you spend hours customizing your avatar and never see it again. But you do see the water, and it is beautiful. Thanks to its free roam format, players can run around the medieval world without doing any work, hopping on horses and collecting berries willy-nilly. And thankfully, you can go swimming. I would like to believe my interest in history came from some profound sense of its importance in everyday life, but it really started with a desire to eat soup and bread in ancient taverns after a long day spent frolicking in a virtual lake. Throw out the storyline, scale back the world-building, and delete the bonus levels. Honestly, this game was an earlier attempt at cottagecore, one with a few goblins and spells thrown in.

Gone Home

Steam (2013)

I don’t care if the house is haunted…let me live here! Screenshot by author.

The creators of Gone Home call it an interactive exploration simulator, and it won more than a dozen gaming awards for its heartfelt storyline, suspense-building, and challenge to the action-oriented style of most games. Gone Home makes the player a college student returning home to an empty house, rife with clues and dimly lit hallways. But what lands this game on the list is the perfectly-crafted suburban thunderstorm ambience that accompanies the gameplay. This feature especially shines through when you finally reach the greenhouse.