- lakes full of trophy bass.
- amazing fish artifical intelligence.
- these bass mess with your head.
- the only bass fishing game with level based play.
Championship Bass takes PlayStation fishing to new depths! It is
an intricately detailed, realistic bass fishing game and the
first fishing title to incorporate level-based gameplay.
Challenging for beginners and seasoned anglers, these bass jump,
shake, and roll to throw the lure. The dynamic camera movement
features simultaneous above-water and underwater views where
players can see the fish and tease them to strike. Play in
either professional bass tournaments or just fish recreationally
using your choice of fishing lures, rods, and reels.
.com
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Ready to go fishin'? Championship Bass from EA Sports is a great
catch--even for non-anglers. This game is loaded with lures and
fishing options like water temperature, time of day, time of
year, water color and even how smart the fish are, but it's the
fish fights that are truly remarkable.
Depending on the size of your catch, battles with bass can last
20 minutes or more as you raise and lower the rod, let the reel
spool free, and tighten it in to bring home your catch. We
recommend using an optional fishing-rod controller for even more
realism.
With four sweeping lakes to tackle, players have plenty of
locations to search for the big one. Tournament and career modes
pit gamers against computer fishermen as they try to catch the
heaviest five bass within a set time limit. Bluegills and
catfish also fill the lakes, but it's the big bass that players
will be after. --Robb Guido
Pros:
* Go anywhere--lakes are full of bass
* Great fish fights
* Lures galore
Cons: * Landing a bass can be painful, especially if you're
using the wrong lure
* No two-player mode
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Review
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It has not been a good week for Cid, the Siamese fighting fish
that sits in front of my television. He has watched in horror
while I've reeled in his brethren, screaming such t-talking
phrases as "Who's your daddy now!" and "Mmm, you'd look good with
some tartar sauce." The cause of Cid's angst is Championship
Bass, a slightly flawed but convincingly realistic bass-angling
simulation. Although the game fails to make a good first
impression due to graphics and control glitches, its great
features - such as lake exploration via boat, an underwater
camera, and accurate fish behavior - make up for those flaws.
The game breaks down into four main modes: fishing trip, career,
tournament, and challenge. Fishing trip is the equivalent of a
practice mode, while the career and tournament modes pit you
against unseen nents in a timed race to catch the heaviest
bass. The challenge mode offers a series of timed levels. You
advance after completing the objectives in a given level, and
beating certain levels or modes unlocks hidden lakes or lures.
While some games use prerendered backgrounds and fixed fishing
locations, this game offers huge lakes that can be explored via a
boat you pilot. While exploring, you have the option of toggling
on an underwater camera to find fish. This camera works far
better than conventional underwater sonar - and you will begin to
appreciate its effectiveness while playing. These two unique
features give the game an edge on some of its competitors.
However, at its root this game follows the timeless angling
tradition: Pick bait and reel, cast bait, wait for bite, reel in,
repeat until belly growls for dinner ( belly optional).
Fortunately, this game helps deaden the boredom somewhat. In
addition to the free-exploration option (so you don't have to sit
in one place forever), game time in most modes has been
compressed - meaning five hours of game time is equivalent to an
hour of real time. This gives the game a faster pace. More
importantly, the fish act wholly realistic (based on my real-life
fishing experiences) and require active attention. Perhaps I just
need to get outside more, but I found myself getting sucked into
the nuances of how finicky these fish were. Everything matters:
type of bait, where the bait's dropped, and how the bait moves
under the water. Attracting fish to a lure becomes a purely
skill-based affair, dependent on how a player jiggles his bait to
"charm" a fish into biting. The lack of templated behavior makes
this game playable over the long haul. Also adding to the
gameplay are "bad fish" such as bluegill and catfish, which
generally steal bait reserved for bass - but anglers can hunt for
them too if they choose. Furthermore, fish battle differently
while being reeled in: Small fish take less than a minute, while
huge fish take up to 10 to 15 minutes. A final plus: The game
works with ASCII's fishing controller. Still, this game has its
share of flaws - there are a few serious control issues, but most
are merely cosmetic. Some of the bait movements are either too
subtle (when the buttons are used) or too strong (when the D-pad
is used). It would be nice to initiate subtle twitchy bait
movement with the D-pad, as you can in other games. Another odd
control glitch: The boat often slows when too close to lake
edges, even when such edges lie far from the boat. Most of the
other flaws fall in the graphics and sound departments. The
underwater camera sometimes shows fish flickering in and out of
view. When bait's in the water, the camera zooms in too close, so
nearby fish can't be located easily, and bait depth becomes hard
to measure. When you're in the boat, the background graphics bob
up and down with the water, which looks rather unrealistic.
Finally, the water reflections are a bit overdone: It looks more
as if your boat is on mirrors rather than water. Finally, while
the sound effects are passable, you have to deal with the worst
two genres of video game music ever: early '80s metal guitar
riffs when you're reeling fish in and a slew of bluegrass guitar
ballads that only folks named Cleetus or Jeb could appreciate.
Fortunately, there's an option to shut off the music. Still, the
gameplay features outweigh Championship Bass' flaws. Although it
lacks enough bells and whistles to snag mainstream gamers who
aren't into the sport, it packs enough excitement to warrant
long-term commitment by fishing fans. If Electronic Arts had
fixed the game's graphics glitches, fine-tuned its control
responsiveness, and removed its awful country "twang" music, it
would have jumped from merely decent to excellent in a heartbeat.
Regardless of the flaws, only fishy folks like Cid will have
reason to complain.--Nelson Taruc--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc.
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form
or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is
prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
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