Review

<p>Get Bass<P><br>AM1 innovated beyond doubt last year when they released Get Bass, an imaginative and well-realised fishing game on the Model 3 arcade board. It was enjoyed by many an arcade-goer, and proved massively popular with real-life fishing fanatics. <p>A conversion to Dreamcast was announced in November 98 at the second New Challenge Conference, and last week it arrived in my local (and unrivalled) friendly importer. In the knowledge that Shenmue isn't out until August, I handed over an obscene amount of money for the game and the fishing controller before it was even out in Japan.<p>The game's introduction makes me smile; it's so much like a fighting game, with the players all being introduced and made to look 'hard' with zooming cameras, poses and exciting music. Then, instead of beating eachother up, they get their fishing rods out and indulge in a spot of fishing! I thought it was funny anyway.<p>There are several modes in the game worth mentioning. In Arcade Mode, you're placed at a point on the lakeside and have a target of fish to get with a time limit. Complete that, and the target number increases, and you're moved further up the lake.<p>There's a story-mode-like option called Consumer Mode. With a team of fishermen, you travel to many lakes in a massive fish-a-thon. It's like a ranking mode, in that whoever gets the heaviest weight of fish over the five day period wins, and you're ranked accordingly. There's a training mode as well which successfully teaches the user how to use the controller and the game itself. Both Arcade and Consumer Modes offer new lures along the way. You'll get all types of lures, ranging from minnows to crank bate. I have no idea what they really are, but they sound authentic enough.<p>The Fishing Rod accessory is superlative. It has two rumble motors working in unison; one at the handle and the other by the reel. On the center of the rod there's an analogue controller with A, B, X and Y buttons. Playing the game works very well indeed, and it's all based around fun. The sensors inside seem to know exactly what you're doing with the thing. The entertainment and isolating feeling of the arcade game is certainly not lost with this controller, and the rumbling is quite fierce. The rod is quite lightweight too.<p>So, you're sitting by the lake and you haven't got a clue how to fish. Okay. You specify your casting point, then you use a 'casting action' to send your lure into the water. The different lures vary in effectiveness, but with a bit of skilled 'wrist action', you should be able to tempt the little fish down there to grab ahold of your lure.<p>For example, if fishing with a plastic worm, you can jig the worm, over logs, off the bottom of the lake - the camera is under the water at this point showing you exactly what's happening in beautiful graphic quality) by shaking the rod up and down. What is also good is that, much like with comparisons some of you will already have drawn, your rod is sensitive to the jigging action. A small 'jig' will give a slow rise of the worm, whereas a hard 'jig' will result in a fast one. In short, you must get jiggy with it.<p>Different lures require different rod skills, giving the game plenty of scope in the longevity department. The way the analogue-based rod interface functions with the graphically-represented fishy is like no interface before. It's so realistic it's scary. When a fish chomps on your lure, you rotate the rod from a horizontal to a vertical position and you've set the hook in the fishes mouth. You can feel that you have. To become a bass master, though, you then need to reel the fighting fish in without losing control. The fierce rumbling makes things difficult, and as I say, it's all very realistic indeed.<p>Unlike the gun accessory, there's no slot for a VMS, so you need to insert a controller onto port two, replete with a VMS unit. Then you can save ranking positions, game data and perhaps a little saved secret or two. One thing I've not even touched on are the cosmetics of the game: the graphics are awesomely beautiful, just as nice as the arcade version, and the sound is as realistic as the gameplay. It just goes to show that, for the two most initially-impressive things about the game to be overlooked, we have a game that plays like a dream.<p>At the end of the day, what we have here is such a phenomenally realistic game that it reaches new heights. Sega's AM departments' titles have always been about realism, and this is another genre under their belt. There's a huge challenge in there thanks to the Consumer Mode, and it's definitely worth buying if you find an enticing price, especially if you're a fishing fan.<p></P> <br /> <P><a href="mailto:">Sega Web</a></P> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <p> <p>  <br /> <br /> <br />