Sega Bass Fishing

"A great game with no depth"

I'll break this down into the good, the bad, and the ugly:

THE GOOD

Graphics - 10

Everything looks perfect in this game. The fish, the boat, even the turtle that swims around near the Lodge looks lifelike. And some people think that it's easy to create great graphics when you only have to animate a few bass and not much else. But the programmers did a great job in this game by making the fish flexible. Instead of normal video game characters who bend in pre-determined joints, the fish in Sega Bass Fishing can bend and flex their bodies just like real fish. In fact, not one pixel looks blocky or otherwise distorted, the graphics are simply beautiful and perfectly done. (minor glitches occur when dragging bait on the sea floor, but nothing major)

Lures -

You'll curse as a giant bass ignores your current bait. But then you'll switch baits and sigh as a he bites eagerly at the new one, only to curse again when he strikes for the lure and misses, leaving you once again without a catch. The lures are realistic, diverse, and the fish react to them appropriately.

Diary -

You have a diary which saves up to 400 fish in original mode and 400 in practice. Not to mention arcade mode has it's own list of big bass. You'll never have to tell tall tales about catching 22 pounders, because you'll have the diary to prove you caught them.

THE BAD

Sound - 5

I usually turn my television volume up about 1/10 of the way. When I play Bass Fishing I have to crank it up to almost full just to hear the sound and it's very bland anyway. The hardest part of the game is choosing a CD to play while fishing.

Difficulty - variable

Just like in real life, sometimes the fish aren't biting and sometimes they are. But unlike real life you have to catch several fish in a very short amount of time in order to win. So instead of relaxing with your pole, you have to hurry all of the time in original and arcade mode. Time runs while selecting lures and switching locations, and you even have a time limit when entering your name in arcade mode, so if you make a mistake you might end up having a record bass with the wrong initials assigned to it.

But when the fish are biting the game becomes insanely easy. You'll sometimes find 7 fish in a little location and then you can cast 7 times in a row in the same spot and rack up 70 pounds of fish(which is a good tournament total). So after the morning session of a tournament you might have a 50 pound lead on everyone, which is an almost guaranteed victory. Also your line never breaks as long as you tap the reel button when reeling in a huge bass.

THE UGLY

Bass bass bass bass bass. That's all you'll ever catch. Plain greenish brown fish in cloudy water with no variation on anything but size. The locations change but the method for catching fish doesn't and neither do the objectives.

OVERALL - 9

I think this is a wonderful game. You don't have to enjoy fishing to enjoy Sega Bass Fishing. It's a change of pace game where you take things slow and can actually relax in a realistic environment with no mortal kombat fatalities or puzzles to solve. You can play with friends and make up your own competitions in practice mode(which is endless fishing with any lure you have in any location you want).
The bottom line is that if you have a collection of fighting games and action games and sports games and no calm, beautiful to look at and simple to play games, you'll definitely want to pick up Bass Fishing.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/00, Updated 03/29/00