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By Keith B (12th Apr 2007)

Imagine a concept so seemingly unfit for a full-on video game release that it actually becomes intriguing. An idea for a game that is so far-flung that you can’t stop thinking about playing it. Such as, let’s see… perhaps a game about cleaning out the garage, or a game about learning to walk as a toddler. Wouldn’t it be curious to give this a try? To me, Rapala Tournament Fishing is just such a game. Strangely irrelevant as a video game, and therefore endlessly mesmerizing.

My childhood memories of fishing trips with daddy and grandpa have less to do with fun and games than with stinking bait, sunburn, and fish guts �" hence my insurmountable fascination with the newly released fishing game for the good old Wii. In other words: When I was little, I couldn’t wait to be done with the fishing outings. Now, I can’t wait to get my hands on this fishing simulation. Part of the reason for this is undoubtedly that as a big Zelda fan, I have been tremendously enjoying the various “Fishing Holes” that can be found in the mythical land of Hyrule. Playing Link, I spent hours catching fish for no reason in the Wii installment of the series, The Twilight Princess (and the fishing hole in Ocarina of Time was almost just as much fun). So how about Rapala Tournament Fishing? Since there already is a big Nintendo-playing fan community for fishing-related activity, Rapala should have it easy. Expand the concept, smooth out the few flaws we’ve seen in the Twilight Princess, make it bigger, and let everybody have a great time catchin’ fish… Unfortunately, this is not what Rapala Tournament Fishing has to offer.

Developed by Magic Wand, the game is sponsored by Rapala, the company that produces “the world’s favorite lure,” according to its own website. Consequently, everything in the game is branded (except for the fish). While this might be a real treat for Rapala-loyal fishermen, who will recognize all the equipment they probably use in real life as well, it’s a rather annoying fact for the beginners among the players. Sure, it’s great that you can choose your line, lure, etc. from amongst a huge bulk of equipment �" but what good will that do if you don’t know what that equipment is actually good for? The incredible detail that has gone into adopting the real-life fishing equipment into the game is all going to seed without a proper tutorial communicating the use of the various things available. Since the game offers very little information regarding what to use, and how, and why, you will likely have to proceed by trial-and-error �" and we all know how frustrating that tends to be, even for the most friendly-spirited dilettante fisherman! So unless you are a pro, you will have a hard time understanding exactly why one particular lure is better than another. Luckily, you will soon notice that this doesn’t matter all that much, thanks to the very low overall level of difficulty of the game.

In any case, once you’re on the water, fishing is fishing, and that can actually be a lot of fun in Rapala Tournament Fishing. After choosing from among three difficulty levels and creating your avatar, you have a further choice between Arcade mode, Free mode, and Tournament mode. While the Free mode probably comes closest, in theory, to the ancient art of fishing, i.e. the simple pastime of hanging out on the lake with not a worry in the world, you will probably spend most of your time in Tournament mode. This is, after all, a competition-style game. The various challenges in this mode are generally themed around certain types of fish, of which you must typically catch the heaviest, the longest, or the most. The challenges are timed, so there’s no time to waste sitting in the boat enjoying a cold one. Finishing among the top ten in the contest will allow you to move on to the next competition. While the competitions do get harder over time, they never become truly challenging, so doing the same thing over and over again becomes rather boring pretty quick.

You’ll find the same problem with the controls: They work very well, but they are just incredibly repetitive (after all, you’re just out to catch fish upon fish upon fish). Basically, the controls are highly reminiscent of Zelda: Hold A while casting the line (with an intuitive Wiimote motion), and then let go of the button in mid-motion �" it’s somehow like bowling in WiiSports, just upside-down. Now you can jerk the line to the left and right, and once you’ve got a strike, you begin to reel the fish in with an intuitive reeling gesture of the Nunchuk. If cccnecessary, you can let the line drag in various ways while you reel (which is a good idea especially if you’ve got a big bugger on the hook, who might just snap your line if you’re not careful). For some reason, a weird little mini-game (press buttons quickly in the order prescribed on screen) ends the fight with the fish, and determines whether you’ll get it into the boat or not. Regardless of the wide variety of fish to catch, and the wide variety of equipment to use for this task, the actual fishing of course ends up being very repetitive after a while. Nevertheless, it’s fun, and the controls work very well �" no problems there.

The graphics are a mixed bag. While the animation of the fish and the water effects are nice enough, the landscapes and characters don’t look so good at all. Definitely no Next Gen material in this game! On the water, you can choose among various perspectives: There’s a 3rd person view of boat and character, a closer side-ways view of your character, and a combined underwater view of lure and fish. Once a potential catch nears the lure, some bad graphics flaws start appearing sometimes. When a fish swims straight into your lure, this tends to result in a graphical overlay of images without any interaction… Similar discontinuities can be observed once the fish is reeled in close to the boat, at which point it begins to just magically move through it instead of slapping against its side. All this is accompanied by a narrator’s voice (your buddy on board), which is recorded nicely, but which becomes all-too repetitive all-too quickly. The same goes for the soundtrack, which starts out sounding great, and ends up being quite annoying.

In the long run, heading over to the Twilight Princess fishing hole on your trusty steed Epona will prove to be a lot more fun than hopping in the boat with Rapala’s yacking fishing advisor. For a game designed to be a full-fledged fishing simulation, this should be some cause for embarrassment. Perhaps Rapala Tournament Fishing should have remained in the design studio for a few more months, instead of being rushed on the shelves. Some more tweaking of the controls, the soundscheme, and the graphics could definitely have made this added more enjoyable. Alas, that’s certainly not the strategy followed by developers of a corporate-sponsored budget game, and thus I will now pack away the Rapala gear and get out the Twilight Princess rod.