This game is almost as choppy as the Bering sea itself.
User Rating: 6 | Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm X360
What do you get when you combine choppy game play, less-than-stellar frame rates and terribly small on-screen writing? The answer is: Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm. Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" is one of the most exciting television shows currently on the air. One would think that a game modeled after that same show would contain the same intensity, that isn't the case. Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm is a game with a promising concept; Command a crab-fishing vessel and its crew while battling 40 foot waves and ravaging storms on the Bering Sea. Sadly, Alaskan Storm doesn't quite deliver. The game commences with a cut scene in which an overturned vessel is on the brink of being swallowed by an ocean (no pun intended) of monstrous waves. The shot changes to the Coast Guard Cutter "Mellon" as a rescue chopper leaves the deck in search of the capsized ship. The chopper flies into the darkness and the scene ends. That's about as exciting as this game gets. Soon after the scene ends the player is sitting at the wheel of the Northwestern, a real-life crab-fishing boat. A video box appears and a clip begins to play in which the Skipper of the Northwestern, Captain Sig Hansen, instructs you on the coming activities, these videos continue to pop-up from time to time. This is the start of a tutorial, which seems to take about as long as an entire Alaskan crab fishing season. The tutorial is full of repetitive messages and commands, in which on screen prompts give instructions on how to complete the task at hand. The instruction prompts frequently have you sailing half way across the Bering Sea to complete some random task. The sailing might possibly be the most painful aspect of the game. When the camera is trained on the outside of the boat, the game tends to get very choppy, pausing and freezing quite frequently, a problem that might be expected to occur during a PC game, but not Xbox 360. As you continue to progress through the tutorial, more prompts will appear. The only problem is, once they appear, they tend to stay on the screen until the task is completed, engulfing half of the viewing area, making completion of the aforementioned task(s) very difficult, and sometimes on the verge of annoying. The tutorial touches on everything from basic control and operation on the boat, to unloading and selling your catch. Good luck reading anything on the screen though, as the writing is unbelievably tiny; a problem that plagues the entire game. Once the tutorial wraps up, you're thrust out on your own to build your own crab-fishing empire. Once you've selected the proper crew and taken care of anything in need of attention, you're given the opportunity to embark on your first season of fishing. Things go pretty much as expected from here. You're tasked with selecting an area to fish, plotting where to drop your pots, and the only thing left to do is set a waypoint and use the "fast time" feature to steam to the area you've chosen, and drop your gear. The occasional breakdown, malfunction, or crew injury will occur, and every once in a while a distress call will broadcast over the radio from a sinking ship. If you're in the area, you can offer your assistance in the search, rescue, and recovery operations, although that occasionally ever happens. This is pretty much the extent of what's going to happen in the game. There are a handful of mini-games which, at times, are amusing. The game has it's moments of fun and excitement, as well as horror and despair, but they're few and far between. One thing that does catch the eye are the surprisingly well crafted water and wave effects. They can bring you to the edge of your seat on the brink of a colossal wave, or they can dazzle you as your ship glides across calmer, more tranquil waters. But that alone isn't enough to make the game appealing to the casual gamer, and the bottom line is: if you're not a devoted fan of the show or Alaskan crab-fishing itself, this game will probably have you sleeping before you're even granted access to the wheelhouse. It's realism and detail might appeal to some, but if you think you will be interested, it would be a wise decision to rent it first, and make your decision from there.
