I live on the coast. I can see the sea from my window. It's been like that for 30 years. How many times have I fished? Once. It sucked. I got the line stuck in a wall and didn't see the point in trying to retrieve it.
I don't care for fishing. I don't get fishing. Fishing for food I get, obviously, but fishing for fun or sport (is it even a sport?) I cannot fathom.
But I do, unfortunately, concede that it can be gamified quite easily, and that's what Sega decided to do, unleashing Sega Bass Fishing onto the world in the late 1990s, complete with fishing reel controllers.
Ugh. Let's get this over with.
Fun Times
I'm playing the PC port of this... classic... complete with absurd resolutions and controller support and it looks pretty good. I fired up the arcade mode and the announcer sounds like he doesn't quite know what English is, but it's polished and arcadey and full of flashing HUD elements and I can't fault that. I'd happily spend some time in this game - if it weren't about fishing.
Frustrations
The first task you face is to select a bait. They come in different designs, are used in different situations, and somehow come with different difficulties so you can bet I'm going to avoid this piece of bait and swap it for somethi- Why is my timer ticking down already? Are you kidding me?
Line out and away we go. We're fishing. Wooo.
I need 11lbs-worth of fish in, now, a minute or so. That could be done in one fish, but you and I both know it won't. I'll be happy with something, whether it meets the requirements or not, so let's watch some bait bob around the lakeside.
It's actually only seconds later than something happens, with a fish - one would assume a Bass, but what do I know? - looking at my bait with intent.
I don't actually know what the procedure is for hauling this sucker onto my boat (and, as an aside, why I am on a boat casting into the pier, and not on the pier casting out?), but I'm sure it'll be obvious when the time com-
Oh shit, okay! Fish, goddamnit!
That was to be expected, I suppose. A meter displaying my line tension will clearly come in handy for reeling it in, with different speeds available on the controller to pull your fish in quickly or slowly, depending on what needs to be done (cut the line and go back home, if you ask me).
I caught a second and struggled - really struggled - with it for 3 seconds before it was gone. Everything explodes into view, and if you're not ready for acting on it, then the fish will bugger right off.
I was getting closer to catching something, but not close to reeling it in, and nowhere near close enough to pass the stage.
Final Word
So, around 4 minutes after starting the game up, I quit the game and uninstalled it because fishing bloody sucks.
It looks and sounds all exciting when Sega does it. You frantically yet delicately and deliberately reel in your fish in the hopes of topping the scoreboard, but for what? Was that exciting? Was that engaging? Did it evoke the thrill of fishing in real life, but in a fraction of the time?
This, to me, is a game that has to exist because people - wrongly - think fishing is fun. If that's you, then play Sega Bass Fishing by all means, because these days, it's looking rather nice. But if that's not you, then you might as well walk on by, and only visit this if you want to learn something about arcade history or something.
It's been ported all over the place since its release, so I know it has a following. As I said, I can see how you could gamify the whole thing, but when I see the end result - you caught an arbitrarily large/small fish, well done/bad luck - I have to wonder why you'd want to seek it out as a thing to play.
Maybe I'm wrong.
In the case of fishing, I'm not. Bug hunting? Butterfly catching? Excellent things to catch. Fish? Gotta be kidding me.
Fun Facts
Believe it or not, there was going to be a 'Sega Bass Fishing of the Dead', an on-rails FPS for the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS... until it was revealed to be an April Fools day hoax. Make it happen, Sega. I'm not even a fan of zombies.
Sega Bass Fishing, developed by Sega AM1, first released in 1997.
Version played: PC, 2011.
Version watched: PC, 2011 (NintendoComplete - no, I didn't watch all of it)