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IGN Review of Hooked! Real Motion Fishing
Wii has a curse. No matter how hard (or little) development teams try, or how much (little) cash is thrown at a product, fishing games just don't work on Wii. It's sad really, as the concept and execution of a fishing game on Wii is about as simple as humanly possible. Nintendo threw a simplistic mini-game in Zelda, and it has easily been the best experience for dropping bait on Wii, and that's extremely sad. We've seen multiple efforts already, including an official licensed Rapala game, Hudson's Fishing Master, and now Hooked: Real Motion Fishing. Amazingly enough, nobody can pull this no-brainer of a design off. Someone call the people over at shockwave.com and get a web game put on Wii; we could really use some quality product over here.
Hooked! Real Motion Fishing is exactly what you'd expect from a low-budget fishing experience on Wii. Throw together a simple interface, add first generation PS2 graphics, and map the reel action to nunchuk motion. In Hooked, however, you'll also get a rod and reel controller shell (thanks Nintendo; look what you started) to slip your controller into for a more visceral experience. In reality this is less a needed piece of hardware and more a free toy in a box of disgusting cereal, as the bigger box and included pack-in is included to try and encourage Wii owners to look over the $49.99 price tag. After putting the controller shell together and taking it for a spin we quickly dropped the larger controller for our more traditional free-hand setup shortly after. It doesn't add anything to the experience, and actually stops IR from being used, which makes the interface a pain the butt to navigate.
As for the game itself, Hooked! is pretty much a marriage of Fishing Master's rod control and Rapala's sub-par "realistic" take on the sport. Players can hit up different lakes, drive their bass boat around, cast with a variety of styles (overhand, side arm, backhand), and will eventually be put into an underwater camera with tons of static fish models barely animating as they hover on-screen. Reel close enough to one and you'll trigger a strike. The underwater camera is entirely broken, however, as any fish movement automatically throws the screen into a mish-mash of a view. The game attempts to set players up to see the strike in action, but the result is nothing short of needless camera cuts and jumpy visuals. If you're lucky the camera will right itself just as the fish grabs the bait, allowing you to set the hook and reel for dear life.
Once "Hooked!" the game launches into a mini-game similar to Fishing Master's motion-based battle. Reel in while tilting the controller in various motions and you'll win the fight. Fail to follow the on-screen prompts, however, and the line will break. Where Fishing Master actually made this event semi-entertaining, however, Hooked! fails, as the fish movement is so erratic that the on-screen prompts are too late to even matter. You can land fish, but you'll need to learn to do so despite the game's attempted prompts, rather than following what it gives you. Included in the battle sequences is VO shouting out directional info as well, but it ends up cutting itself off or overlapping in an attempt to keep up. If there are impressive fishing games on LCD, NES, Super NES, and GBA of all things, why is it difficult to make a system that works nearly 20 years after the first fishing game existed? It isn't a hard concept to grasp.
Oddly enough, Hooked! has managed to pull off something that many other Wii games can't do as of yet, which is connecting its users online for Wi-Fi action. Hooked! doesn't have enough gameplay to justify even a rental, so it ends up being a wasted effort overall, but this speaks volumes to future Wii releases. If Hooked! Real Motion Fishing, a game that's a jumbled mess of horrible gameplay and shockingly painful presentation, can manage to make a fully online experience for players to connect and play together (both friend code supported and random online play), there's really no excuse for future products to not include full online support. After multiple attempts we were unable to find anyone online to play - a real shocker, we know - but even at its very best there's no way Hooked's online play could salvage the garbled mess of gameplay, so we warn any gamers smart enough to read reviews before purchasing games to stay away from this one no matter what. If you could connect to people online, you wouldn't want to anyways.
©2007-11-09, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Hooked! Real Motion Fishing is exactly what you'd expect from a low-budget fishing experience on Wii. Throw together a simple interface, add first generation PS2 graphics, and map the reel action to nunchuk motion. In Hooked, however, you'll also get a rod and reel controller shell (thanks Nintendo; look what you started) to slip your controller into for a more visceral experience. In reality this is less a needed piece of hardware and more a free toy in a box of disgusting cereal, as the bigger box and included pack-in is included to try and encourage Wii owners to look over the $49.99 price tag. After putting the controller shell together and taking it for a spin we quickly dropped the larger controller for our more traditional free-hand setup shortly after. It doesn't add anything to the experience, and actually stops IR from being used, which makes the interface a pain the butt to navigate.
As for the game itself, Hooked! is pretty much a marriage of Fishing Master's rod control and Rapala's sub-par "realistic" take on the sport. Players can hit up different lakes, drive their bass boat around, cast with a variety of styles (overhand, side arm, backhand), and will eventually be put into an underwater camera with tons of static fish models barely animating as they hover on-screen. Reel close enough to one and you'll trigger a strike. The underwater camera is entirely broken, however, as any fish movement automatically throws the screen into a mish-mash of a view. The game attempts to set players up to see the strike in action, but the result is nothing short of needless camera cuts and jumpy visuals. If you're lucky the camera will right itself just as the fish grabs the bait, allowing you to set the hook and reel for dear life.
Once "Hooked!" the game launches into a mini-game similar to Fishing Master's motion-based battle. Reel in while tilting the controller in various motions and you'll win the fight. Fail to follow the on-screen prompts, however, and the line will break. Where Fishing Master actually made this event semi-entertaining, however, Hooked! fails, as the fish movement is so erratic that the on-screen prompts are too late to even matter. You can land fish, but you'll need to learn to do so despite the game's attempted prompts, rather than following what it gives you. Included in the battle sequences is VO shouting out directional info as well, but it ends up cutting itself off or overlapping in an attempt to keep up. If there are impressive fishing games on LCD, NES, Super NES, and GBA of all things, why is it difficult to make a system that works nearly 20 years after the first fishing game existed? It isn't a hard concept to grasp.
Oddly enough, Hooked! has managed to pull off something that many other Wii games can't do as of yet, which is connecting its users online for Wi-Fi action. Hooked! doesn't have enough gameplay to justify even a rental, so it ends up being a wasted effort overall, but this speaks volumes to future Wii releases. If Hooked! Real Motion Fishing, a game that's a jumbled mess of horrible gameplay and shockingly painful presentation, can manage to make a fully online experience for players to connect and play together (both friend code supported and random online play), there's really no excuse for future products to not include full online support. After multiple attempts we were unable to find anyone online to play - a real shocker, we know - but even at its very best there's no way Hooked's online play could salvage the garbled mess of gameplay, so we warn any gamers smart enough to read reviews before purchasing games to stay away from this one no matter what. If you could connect to people online, you wouldn't want to anyways.
©2007-11-09, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved