Rapala Tournament Fishing (Wii, 2006)

Review of Rapala Fishing for the Nintendo Wii

Ah fishing. The minute I put this game into the
Wii I felt like I was on a boat, or in for a cheesy
gaming experience!

The first half an hour in the game I found I had to
learn how to drive the boat (5 min) and cast (25 min).

Once I learned how to cast I was in for a cheesy gaming
experience. In fact, it was so ... bad that it was
fun in a campy sort of way.

You get to pick you line, lure, rod, and person. Once you
do this you and a computer sidekick (who babbles the most
witless banter) go out fishing! You can compete in
tournaments and win new tackle and such. I guess your goal
is to become a master fisher.

I tell you the graphics are interesting. The use of
the Wii remote is good, but hard to get at first. The game
graphics are ok and the play is also ok. Yet I still kept
playing for the campy sort of things. Having the Wii's AI
sidekick telling me that I should change my lure, comment
about my driving/boating abilities, and babbling about
the location I picked to fish were funny.

Overall 2/5. Worth picking up if you are a die hard bass
fisher and watch the Bass fishing shows on TV.
Otherwise just rent it.

Latsyrhc
Tamarack Collectibles

I purchased "Rapala Tournament Fishing" partly because my wife saw the package, her eyes popped open (she loves fishing) and said "oooh! Honey lets get this!". Another part was due to the fact that I saw the Activision logo on it and thought "well it's got to be good because it is an Activision title". I couldn't have been more mistaken in my life.

This game is BAD, embarrassingly bad. Horrifically, monstrously, embarrassingly bad. College graduates could do a better job making this game. I'm a software developer and I just sat through 10 minutes of the game and thought the whole time, "do they not have a QA (Quality Assurance) department??!". Honestly I don't have the words to describe how bad this game is. I would have to invent new words to describe the utter and completely monstrous level of failure that this game has managed to achieve.

Let me give you a few examples. While playing the game, if you aren't reeling in and you move the pole, the lure doesn't move. Obviously the developers had never fished in their lives because in real life, if you move the pole the lure moves.

Here's a second example. If you reel in the lure and just stop, in the game the lure just stops wherever it's at. In real life it will sink or float, not stay put like it's in suspended animation.

Thirdly if you reel a fish in. In real life, it will avoid the bottom of the boat. Not stay suspended halfway through it for a few minutes.

Honestly I can not believe anyone would even think about selling a game this bad. I can see now that Activision has completely lost it's focus on games and quality. I will think twice and probably three times before EVER purchasing another Activision title. I will also not be buying Rapala lures from now on.

When I went to the Activision website, to express my extreme dissapointment I found that the Activision website, is obviously only tested with Internet Explorer. It doesn't work too well with Firefox 3.5. On top of that it is broken on the page to enter in a message for customer support does not work. I see your web designers are every bit as competent as your game developers, which is even more embarrassing. Plus its even further evidence that Activision has no QA department what-so-ever.

When I went to the Rapala website, there is absolutely NO option to send an email to them what-so-ever. I realy felt it necessary to write a leter of disappointment expressing how bad this game is and what a bad name it gives Rapala. But alas it appears that neither Activision nor Rapala care.

Stay away from this game, stay far away from it. I'll be trying other fishing games soon.

This game for the Wii is really great! I bought it for my husband -- the fisherman -- but found out that I like it just as much as he does. I don't have to bother to get ready to go fishing in a REAL boat, I can just tune in to the game and experience all the same things that I would have to hassle with at the lake. It's life-like action makes it easy to cast, move the boat, adjust the bait, and all the other things associated with fishing. We will have plenty of wasted hours playing with this game, I'm sure. I also bought an adaptable rod and reel for the Wii from eBay, so we have the full motion of reeling with the nunchuck and the other remote as the rod. All are great!

The game is fun for kids, once you get the hang of driving and casting. The kids seem to enjoy being able to drive the boat and see underwater. It took hours for the kids to be able to cast and they still, at times get frustrated. We have a fishing pole that the remote and nunchuk are in and that seems to make it a little more realistic, however, it makes casting harder. The graphics and locations aren't the greatest, but the kids seem to like the idea that they were able to catch a whopper in Africa. The downside to the game is when you catch a whopper, you have to "net" the fish on a subgame screen and enter a code correctly to land the fish. Little kids who "catch" the fish but are unable to "land" the fish no longer ask to play this game anymore. They enjoy the playstation fishing game better from way back when. I would recommend this game for children, but we adults find it quite boring and easily beaten.

I like this game and prud to say that i purchased from ebay at a fraction of the price.. I saved a fortune because I dint have to buy frm wal mart or gsme stop.. Thanks ebay you save us a fortune