‘Not A Bad Sized Catch’ Review

‘Not A Bad Sized Catch’

Get out the tackle box and fire up the ol” mercury outboard, ‘cuz it’s time to go

fishin’. Trophy Bass Fishing 2 is a new game from Sierra that puts you right smack in the

middle of world class bass tournaments, no entry fee required.

The designers did an excellent

job with Trophy Bass 2. The graphic interface is easy to use. The backgrounds

are pleasing to the eye, especially at high resolutions. Each picture is nature

related, whether it be a glassy lake in the morning, or a large mouth striking

a lure. The lake overhead is adequately rendered, and the little tools to the

side are good enough. The graphics when you are fishing are good, too, especially

the shoreline. The rocky shore looks super realistic and the digitized fisherman

moves very smoothly. It’s unrealistic that you can see the fish while they are

in the water, however. The fish themselves are small sprites, but detailed enough

not to take away from the game.

The most impressive graphics are those when you select lures and rods. Crystal

clear digitized pictures show all your options. There are several types of lures to

choose from, and all of them have several different colors to choose from. You have a

few rod choices, all of them Pinnacle Rods. There is even an option to choose how you

cast your lure. You can flip your lure for a quiet, but short delivery, or you can heave that

crank bait with a two handed toss. When choosing your casting style an animation

sequence is shown of the cast and a description of the pros and cons of the cast are

displayed to help you choose how to deliver your lure.

The sound is pleasing. Birds chirp

away, frogs croak, waves gently rock against the shore, and fish leap from the

water and make a splash. The sound of reeling the lure in is annoying. It creeks

and wails when you pull it in, and when you fight a fish, the sound just doesn’t

go away. The music is okay, but I was expecting CD music, not MIDI. MIDI music

is okay, but it sounds pathetic compared to CD music, unless you have a 32 bit

sound card.

Unfortunately, the gameplay becomes boring after awhile. You can only catch so many fish

before it gets repetitive, but there is a little thrill every time you pull in a whopper of a big

mouth. Moving around the lake and using the fish finder is easy, and casting and

reeling in the lure is simple, too. Fighting the fish can be a little clumsy sometimes. I often

found myself moving the mouse to the menu bar at the bottom and switching to another

program. Getting my pole in the air also took a little time to learn, but once I got used to

fightin’, it became easy.

The game takes awhile to load, even on a 4x CD-Rom.

A nice feature is multiplayer. You can fish away against people over a LAN, modem or

over the internet. It is not the most competitive game on earth, but it’s a fun little

gimmick plus you can chat with other anglers and tell fish stories.

So in conclusion, if you enjoy fishing, and don’t mind trying to catch a virtual fish over

and over, then you will enjoy this game. Personally I suggest the real thing instead of the

game, but this is a good way to learn the ropes of fishin’.