Feel the need to get out on the lake and do some fishing, but you just can't break away from the daily grind long enough to make the trip? Perhaps you need to reorganize your priorities, my friend. But until that day, you can always use THQ's latest fishing game, Bassmasters 2000, to tide you over.
The game has a lot of impressive features, such as real lakes, color commentary, and even a create-an-angler mode. You can choose from several different modes of play including a speed-fishing mode that lets you jump right into the action, a casting game that helps improve your casting accuracy, a two-player split-screen mode, and a tournament mode.
One of the best things about Bassmasters 2000 is its wonderfully designed control scheme, which really makes you feel as though you have a fishing rod in your hands. The analog stick controls your rod very precisely. In addition, the game has reel speeds, and it also lets you change the amount of drag you have set. All of these things are taken into account when you hook a fish, so knowing the basics of fishing is essential. If you've got your drag set too high, or you try to reel the fish in too fast when it's fighting, or you're not fast enough when it's not fighting, the line could break, or the fish could simply slip off the hook. Whatever the outcome, playing the game is a whole lot of fun thanks to the responsive controls and true-to-life setup, which makes playing more about what you do and how you do it than about sheer luck.
As in any business, catching big bass is all about location. Bassmasters 2000 does a wonderful job of representing this fact by putting the fish right where they'd be in real life, based on the weather conditions and time of day. Your cherry bass boat, outfitted with a depth finder, makes finding good fishing spots a fun little activity.
Visually, all of the different types of fish and lakes look accurate, as do your angler, boat, and gear. The camera angle that shows the underwater action, letting you scan for nearby bass, is pretty good. Being able to see a fish as it's about to strike your lure is actually pretty exciting - you'll wish you could have such a view in real life. The game features several sizes of fish, so you know which ones are worth your time.
Even the sound and music in Bassmasters 2000 are rather good, although the color commentary provided by Shaw Grisby becomes a little unnerving after awhile. He mostly just belts out stupid one liners that are either insulting or overly happy, like "You can't catch any fish without getting your bait wet," or the constant "Nice cast!" In any case, the game's audio does get the job done, with lots of decent sound effects and a couple of backwoods-style music tracks.
In the end, Bassmasters 2000 is a great game with wonderful controls, true-to-life fish behavior, and great graphics and sound. This game will definitely please any angler, whether a real-life bass-fishing expert or a beginner looking for some practice.
