0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Big Bass Fishing

     

Big Bass Fishing is a budget 3^rd person action sports game based around fishing. The game was developed by Coresoft and published by Take Two Interactive Software for the Playstation. The game released in Europe on the 24^th of April 2002, with a North American release the following month on the 2^nd of May.

Notable people who worked on this game, Mike Montague who worked on the games Modelling, Texturing and Animation, he worked on the 2006 adaption of Barnyard working the games modelling and Backgrounds, and in 2012 he was the Rigging Lead on Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.

Alan Pavlish who worked as the Executive Producer on the game, has had a very long career in the video game industry which dates all the way back to 1983 when he worked as a programmer on Galaxian. He was also a Programmer on the 1988 RPG Wasteland, he also worked as a designer on this game.

Through his career Paylish has mostly worked in the Production side of things, working as Executive Producer on games like Wolfenstein 3D, Descent, Star Trek Starfleet Academy and Carmageddon. In 2014 he provided Additional Writing and Design work on Wasteland 2.

Big Bass Fishing is made up of three game modes, these are Arcade, Competition and Challenge, as well as five specific events to compete in, these include Free Fishing mode, Beat-the-Clock challenges, 2-Day Lunker, and 3-Day All Release contests, or the ultimate 3-Day Tournament.

New locations are unlocked by completing timed 15 minute events with goals such as catching two fish of any kind, or catching either two or three of the same kind of fish, from the 14 different species that are available for fishing in the game, as well as catching fish above a certain weight.

 

The games arcade mode gives the player five minutes to catch five fish, each time you catch a fish an addition 90 seconds are added to your time. Every fish you catch moves you to a new fishing location, in total there are a dozen locations for you to fish as with two lakes, a river and reservoir for you to test your fishing skills at.

The game only features one fisherman, in the case of Big Bass Fishing it is a Fisherwoman, when on the body of water and in your boat you have no control over the boats locations, with all fishing points at fixed locations around the available bodies of water.

The main gameplay of Big Bass Fishing consists of the player choosing from the various lures that are available, with the player needing to select the best lure for each situation, casting and reeling as well as making use of the various gauges. The gauges include the line tension, fish interest, and the effectiveness of the lure that you are currently using.

Basic controls for the game the D-Pad and left analogue stick are used to search your lure options and move your rod, the X button is used to select your lure and select a medium reel. When you have a fish on your line you can reel in slowly or fast, a slow reel in is done with the circle button, while a fast reel in is the X and circle button together, the R1 shoulder button can also be used to reel in fast as well.

The game has the choice of two camera views, either above water behind your angler, or underwater view, your can switch between these using the square button. When the fish is taking a strong pull on the line, your can let the line out to prevent line break by pressing the triangle button. A lure cam can be view by pressing either the L2 or R2 shoulder buttons, left for the left view of the lure and the right for the right view of the lure.

Critically the game was not well received by the handful of publications that reviewed the game, with review scores ranging from below average down dismal. As usual though we will start with the best of them which comes from All Game Guide.

The review called the gameplay for Big Bass Fishing as stinking like a dead mackerel, that has been washed up on the shore for three days. The review finding the first sign of this being the big breasted vacuous looking blonde who first double entendres endlessly, resulting in Big Bass Fishing instead leaves a bad taste in your mouth, as if you've just sampled spoiled catfish.

Another 40 rated review up next this time from GamesFirst who commented on the many that may be tempted by the game and its low price, however they recommended you go for one of the many games already out and reserve this game for a rental at best, even then it’s still not worth it due to the price of rentals.

Game Industry News are next up with another 40 rated review, the review commenting that they are not a fishing guy, but they know of fishing sim people being out there, somewhere, and their recommendation to them is to stay away from Big Bass Fishing.

Playstation Illustrated are next up with a drop in review score to a poor 30 with the review calling the game full of glitches recommending playing Take 2’s other between good and bad fishing game Action Bass. The reviewer however recommended playing Championship Bass, unless you are trying to be the gamer to play every Playstation game ever made.

 +

The final review comes from Gaming Target who scored the game at a dismal 15, the review ditching their usual opening in which they write about the background of the game, as Big Bass Fishing is not worth the effort. The reviewer continuing by saying the game pure and simply sucks, as a matter of fact, it’s pretty much an insult to sucky games.

 

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where the game must be very common with Gamedude offering just 5 cents when you trade in your copy of Big Bass Fishing. If on the other hand you are looking for a copy of the game from Gamedude, you will be looking at a cost of $2.

Heading over to Retrogames.co.uk we sadly don’t find the game available or even listed. So we will quickly head over to eStarland.com, where we do find the game available, we find a total of two used copy that are available, one used and complete the other missing its manual.

Starting with the used copy which comes complete this copy of Big Bass Fishing can be picked up for $5.50. The second copy on offer is the used copy with no manual which can be picked up for $2.75. Also on offer is a trade in with eStarland offering up to $2 for a complete copy of the game, this price will reduce to just 48 cents for a disc only copy of the game.

 

Lastly we head over to Amazon.com where we find just 2 copies of the game on offer, the first copy is a disc only copy in acceptable condition, this copy will set you back $9.44. While copies of the game are currently hard to come by I don’t think the game is that rare, the second copy of the game is a like new copy and is only priced at $11.44 once shipping has been added in.

Written by

P J Gibbon