A boating sim that's ideal only to hardcore fans and sim lovers.
Pros
Cons
Gameplay
From the get-go you will be presented with 5 missions that teach you the basics. The premise of each season is pretty simplistic. At the start you'll arrange your fishermen, buy necessities (fuel, bait, cages), set pots (and eventually pick them up again), and sell whatever you catch when you feel the need to. Repeat this for another mind-numbing hour or so, per season, and you have a pretty slow game. As a captain you can tell the crew when to set pots, when to pick them up, to chip ice off the boat (when in colder locales), or go to rest. The crew is fueled by Energy and Morale meters and by having them cook and sleep, you can balance your jobs to make your crew more effective. Steering the boat is relatively slow, and you are always underwhelmed by the speed you will traverse the seas (and yes, I do understand why they are going slow). Thankfully you have the option to speed up time on your planning screen, so while setting and picking up Pots is really slow, at least you can fast track your way back to port, or to the next chain of Pots.
Graphics/Sound
The graphics are fairly terrible. While the wave animations are nicely done, the waves don't look great at all. The land textures are moreso terrible, since the mountains and most terrain just looks like polygon blobs with a variety of mud plastered on them. The boats seem pretty true to the show, but alas, the crew looks like stick figures and a variety of animations are missing. As you spend countless hours just floating along slowly, you'll have to listen to the seagulls always flying above your boat. For some reason, the framerate also drops occasionally which is questionable since this game is so... rough looking.
Value
If you buy this game, you better be pretty sure you want to. For $60, this game is definitely not worth it to every type of gamer. The fact it doesn't do anything new but provide you with a sim that you could probably find on the internet, is sad. On top of that, the multiplayer is bare-bones from the menus to the actual game. You can only talk to a single person at a time, and even then, you can't talk to them unless you go through numerous screens. MP games also take from an hour to more, so you'll be dissapointed you even tried. On top of the normal fishing, you have Missions which provide a bit of variety. From saving boats to parking a boat, you'll have heart-pounding excitement the entire way through. Who knew parallel parking a boat could be so fun? Any way you put this game, it boils down to, "How hardcore of a sim fan are you?"
- It captures the concept of Deadliest Catch.
- The wave animations of the ocean are fairly realistic.
Cons
- Pacing is totally off, it goes way too slow.
- Very repetitious setting Pots and then picking them up later.
- Not worth $60, maybe $40 at most.
- Nothing "next-gen" about this title.
- Terrible acting.
Gameplay
From the get-go you will be presented with 5 missions that teach you the basics. The premise of each season is pretty simplistic. At the start you'll arrange your fishermen, buy necessities (fuel, bait, cages), set pots (and eventually pick them up again), and sell whatever you catch when you feel the need to. Repeat this for another mind-numbing hour or so, per season, and you have a pretty slow game. As a captain you can tell the crew when to set pots, when to pick them up, to chip ice off the boat (when in colder locales), or go to rest. The crew is fueled by Energy and Morale meters and by having them cook and sleep, you can balance your jobs to make your crew more effective. Steering the boat is relatively slow, and you are always underwhelmed by the speed you will traverse the seas (and yes, I do understand why they are going slow). Thankfully you have the option to speed up time on your planning screen, so while setting and picking up Pots is really slow, at least you can fast track your way back to port, or to the next chain of Pots.
Graphics/Sound
The graphics are fairly terrible. While the wave animations are nicely done, the waves don't look great at all. The land textures are moreso terrible, since the mountains and most terrain just looks like polygon blobs with a variety of mud plastered on them. The boats seem pretty true to the show, but alas, the crew looks like stick figures and a variety of animations are missing. As you spend countless hours just floating along slowly, you'll have to listen to the seagulls always flying above your boat. For some reason, the framerate also drops occasionally which is questionable since this game is so... rough looking.
Value
If you buy this game, you better be pretty sure you want to. For $60, this game is definitely not worth it to every type of gamer. The fact it doesn't do anything new but provide you with a sim that you could probably find on the internet, is sad. On top of that, the multiplayer is bare-bones from the menus to the actual game. You can only talk to a single person at a time, and even then, you can't talk to them unless you go through numerous screens. MP games also take from an hour to more, so you'll be dissapointed you even tried. On top of the normal fishing, you have Missions which provide a bit of variety. From saving boats to parking a boat, you'll have heart-pounding excitement the entire way through. Who knew parallel parking a boat could be so fun? Any way you put this game, it boils down to, "How hardcore of a sim fan are you?"
