As much as a game freak as I am, I still enjoy outdoor activities. For example, I like camping and fishing. And as a casual fisherman, I thought it would be nice to have a game that I can play when I am in the mood to fish, so I decided to give American Bass Challenge a try.

ABC has 3 save slots, which is nice if you happen to have friends who also enjoy the sport. Once you start playing, you have to set up your character. The choices, which include things like gender and color of shirt, really have no influence on the game. They merely let you personalize it a little, and that’s never a bad thing. After you set up your character you are offered 3 options for playing the game: quickfish, tournament, and practice. Quickfish throws you in a random spot on a random lake where all you have to do is cast your line and try to catch fish. Tournament mode lets you choose a lake, where you will then take part in a day-long fishing tournament against computer controlled opponents where the goal is to have the most weight in your livewell at the end of the day. Practice mode is where I spend most of my time with this game. When you select practice, you get to choose a lake and fish wherever you want and as long as you want with no worries or pressures, the way fishing was meant to be.

Provided you chose Tourney or practice, you begin in a boat to navigate the lake with. The boat is equipped with a fish finder that is much more helpful than real life fish finders. You have to be careful with your boat however. If you bash it into too may things, you will wreck it and be out of the tournament. This is a feature that I did not appreciate. As much as I enjoy the semi-realistic nature of the game, I feel that this is going too far, especially with the poor hit detection that exists while piloting the boat. I find myself crashing into things that don’t appear to be hitting my boat. This happens most often when you are turning the boat.

Once in fishing mode it is easy to set the range of your cast, and to select one of the many lures that are available and unlockable in tournament mode. The fishing takes place in a top-down view that allows you to see the fish. It’s a good thing the fish are visible or else that would make things terribly boring. Once you have selected your lure simply aim your cast towards the fish. A little knowledge of fishing is required because the different lures all require a certain pattern of reeling in the line to get them to do what they are supposed to. The fish won’t bite just any lure. Sometimes they just plain aren’t interested in what you are offering them and you have to reel in and switch the lure. I really like this aspect of the game because that is how it would really be if you were fishing. Once you get a fish on the line you have to keep an eye on the line stress meter. If you pull too hard when the fish is jumping and splashing around you will snap the line and lose your fish.

A major problem I ran into while reeling in a fish is that sometimes it will get stuck on the backside of a log or a weed, and sometimes you have to cut the line just to be able to get pack to playing. This is not fun. The game should work the fish around the obstacle. I don’t know if this is supposed to be there to add realism, or if it’s just a problem that never got addressed. If they did plan it to happen, I say it’s a bad call. Just like wrecking your boat, it’s a little too real to be fun.

The graphics in ABC are so-so. There really isn’t much to say about them. They aren’t bad, but they aren’t impressive at all, so I would have to say they are fine. For some reason your character doesn’t have a face. They have a head, but the face is missing. Beats me, I don’t get it. I guess this game isn’t about your character; it’s about fishing, so that really doesn’t matter. I just found it odd.

There aren’t a lot of sounds to judge in the game. There is no in-game music at all. There are simply a few insects and birds that make noises, along with the clicking of your reel and the occasional splash of a fish. I like the sounds the insects and the birds make, but the splashing of the fish doesn’t sound quite right. It would also have been nice to have some soft, relaxing music in the background while you are fishing.

The lasting appeal of the game is the outdoor setting. Mother nature does what she wants, when she wants to. Every time you play it is a little different. The weather, the locations of the fish, and what they are biting on all play a part to make each game a unique experience. Even the temperature can make a difference in what will work and what will not.

Ubi Soft has created a decent fishing simulator in American Bass Challenge. This isn’t like Sega’s fishing series on the Dreamcast, where the goal is to catch as many fish as possible in 45 seconds. If that’s what you are looking for than this will not meet your needs. ABC has some issues that I wish were not there, but in the end I still enjoy it. I would have to say that you probably need to like fishing to enjoy this game, and if you are willing to look past the problems, you will find an entertaining fishing experience in American Bass Challenge.