Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm (Xbox 360) Review

Tag : fisherman hat


Hit television shows rarely translate into quality video games, butcan Liquid Dragon buck that trend with their attempt to bring aDiscovery channel favorite to life on your gaming console?


Title: Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm
Publisher: Liquid Dragon
Type: Simulation
Players: 1 (2-8 online)

Does anyone expect this review to be good? The best thing that thisgame has going for it is that I've reviewed it and actually playeda copy of the game, meaning at least one person on this planet hasin fact spent time with the title. Is it potentially the worst gameof all time or did Liquid Dragon and Greenwave surprise me andpresent a fantastic simulator of fishing on the Bering Sea?

Lets find out.

Gameplay

Let me start off with the good  there is a lot to do in this game.If youre looking for a relatively authentic Alaskan crab fishingsimulator you wont find a better game then this one. DeadliestCatch: Alaskan Storm starts you off with four introductory missionsalongside Capt. Sig Hansen of the Northwestern. Most people whowatch the Discovery Channel show will immediately recognize Sig,and if you dont watch the show and for some reason pick up thisgame youll also instantly know that charisma isnt one of hisdefining characteristics. Capt. Sig follows you around most of thegame through pop up scenes where hell tell you what to do or moreregularly what not to do. These first four missions walk youthrough the controls, driving the boat, using the menu system,fishing for crab, retrieving pots and basically every other aspectof being your own Alaskan crab boat captain. Heres a tip  if youwant to play this game for more then a couple of hours take notesduring the introductory missions, because once theyre over yourenever going to remember how to do most of the things Cpt. Sigtaught you.

After completing the first four missions youll unlock Career modewhere you can either take the reigns of one of the five officiallylicensed boats (is that even an accurate way to describe these?) orcustomize your own boat to take out to the Bering Sea. After youcustomize your boat youll be in Dutch Harbor, Alaska waiting forthe King Crab season to end. While in the harbor youre going tohave to buy bait, stack pots, chart a fishing course, and hire acrew. Each harbor has different crew members so keep that in mindif someone starts to get on your nerves while at sea  which theywill. This might seem interesting  and the first time it is, butwith difficult to navigate screens and almost impossible to readtext this entire ordeal will be much more tedious then enjoyable.

With your boat stocked and your crew (all of whom can be assignedspecific jobs) in tow youll be able to cast off from the harborand head to the fishing grounds. A clock on the main screen willtell you how long you have until the season starts (note: do notdrop pots before the season starts), but since you cant readanything on the screen youll also be notified by radio when tostart fishing. The actual act of fishing for Alaskan king crab (thefirst season is King Crab season) is pretty detailed. You chart acourse according to information supplied to you through variouscharts you have access to, and you drop pots accordingly. Afteryouve set your pots its basically a waiting game because theyneed to soak  the longer the soak, the better chance you have ofgetting a big haul. Once enough time has elapsed (I left at least24 hours of soak) you can go fish in your pots. Unfortunately thisis almost impossible through the auto-pilot feature that Cpt. Sigtells you about during the earlier missions so much of the time youwill spend fishing will be a constant struggle to get close enoughto the pots so that youre random crew member can get the pots withthe hook.

The king crab season is short  which would be nice to know headinginto the season as I left most of my gear in the water until I wasgiven a 24 hour notice, at which time I had to screw around theentire Bering Sea retrieving pots so that I made sure I could beback in harbor before the season ended to unload my crab. Youll betold by the crew how many crab are in each pot, of course since Icould barely read any of the on screen text I had no idea that whenthe season ended I would be dropping off the smallest catch for theleast amount of money. Alas I choked it up to being a rookiecaptain, and hoped for a better Opilio crab season. After youvecashed out your catch and paid the crew youre able to use themoney to fix your boat, buy upgrades or hire/fire the crew. Againwhile the game play might be outright tedious and boring the levelof detail put into providing a solid simulation is there. If yourea huge fan of Alaskan crab fishing this game has all the tools tobe a proper sim that youll enjoy for a long time.

Once my upgrades, fixes and crew were ready to go for the opiliocrab season I loaded up the Blackdog and headed out to sea. I waswarned by my Deck Boss that we shouldnt leave on Friday but I spitin the face of superstition so off we went&bad idea! In the firstday of the opilio season I had a crew member wash off the side ofthe boat, three crew members suffer serious injuries that requiredthem to be helicopter lifted back to shore and my boat hit aniceberg and sunk. This might have been the worst stretch of luckany crab boat captain has ever had. Fortunately because the voiceacting is so horrible in this game none of these events triggeredthe least bit of emotion from my crew, so at least nobody was thereto tell me how much I sucked as we were all killed in the BeringSea.

As I watched my boat sink to the bottom of the ice cold ocean Irealized the biggest problem that is facing this game. Thetelevision show is popular because it allows us mere mortals towatch guys engage in what is accurately described as one of theworlds deadliest jobs. That isnt something that translates wellto a video game  when you remove the specter of death from theequation youre just left with a very detailed albeit boringfishing simulator.

Graphics

When youre making a video game about crab fishing in the BeringSea there really isnt much that you need to focus on in thegraphics department. Basically youve got a boat, some water, lessthen a handful of guys and some crab. There is also ice, the sky,and some random shoreline which comes around every so often, but atits most basic there isnt much detail that needs to go intocreating a game like Deadliest Catch. Unfortunately, this gamemisses on almost every front graphically. Other then the water (andsome stunning sunsets) there is almost nothing redeeming about thevisuals in this game. The best thing that I can say about how thisgame looks is that if you were playing it on the original Xboxyoud be impressed  not so much on the 360.

My biggest gripe with the game is that because it is so deep, andthere are so many options youre confronted with a lot of textmenus, and text dialogue. Unfortunately, for some unknown reasonthe text in this game is written in the smallest, most illegibleprint known to man. During my first King Crab season I didnt haveany clue how many crab I caught because I couldnt read the numbersbeing given to me, and I had no idea what the percentage at the topof the screen said. I just crossed my fingers and hoped that I wassomewhere around 93 instead of 13 when I decided to put a pot backin the water.

Youd also think the powers that be might have spent some timecoming up with some impressive graphics for the crab as theyreloading onto your boat. Youd think that  but youd be wrong,because when you pull up a pot and its opened on deck youllbasically see a strange brownish red turd like substance ooze outof the pots. Frankly when youre making a game about crab fishingit is inexcusable to me to not spend at a few moments making thecrab look convincing since they are one of the main attractions ofthe game. Before anyone jumps on me claiming all I need is a highdefinition television and all of my text worries will be wiped awaythats fine  but if youre making a game that will only beplayable by those with HDTV Im going to hold that against youanyways.

I could go on with the bad  every single fisherman in this gamelooks exactly alike. Its almost as if the crowd from an EA Sportstitle walked off the set of their game and into a starring role inDeadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm. Its not that big of a deal whenyoure creating thousands of people to make them look like cookiecutter recreations of one another, but when youre only tasked witha couple dozen fisherman you should be able to at least give themeach their own distinctive wetsuits. Also while the boats arecustomizable they still come off as high quality last generationboats.

Can you tell the graphics issue really bothered me with this game?On top of all the things Ive already said not only do you have todeal with sub par graphics, but youve also got to deal with longloading screens, and then the graphics that are there wind up beingchoppy when the whether starts to impact the gameplay.

Sound

The problems that I have with the sound on Deadliest Catch: AlaskanStorm might be due to my inexperience as an actual Bering Sea crabfisherman. However, during an hour long episode of the DiscoveryChannel hit show I dont remember ever thinking  if these seagullswould just shut up Id be able to understand what these people weresaying. As someone who has spent a good deal of time on the ocean,and fishing I can say that its not unlikely that seagulls do flyaround a crab fishing boat a lot during the day, however is that adetail so integral to the entire experience that it seems to havebeen made the focal point of the sound in this game? Personally Idont think so; then again I am not a crab fisherman so I might bewrong. On the bright side while annoying the seagulls do soundauthentic, and frankly thats a step up from most of the othersound throughout this game.

A bigger problem then the non stop seagull chirping is the factthat the voice acting, or lack thereof in this game is horrible.Youve got the ability to call five other captains on your radio,as well as speak to any member of your crew but you wont find muchdifference in what anyone says, at any time, regardless of thesituation. For shits and giggles I crashed my boat into a giantblock of ice and as my boat was sinking to the bottom of the BeringSea I contacted the guy who was in charge of the deck and heresponded: Everything is fine so far. Is that so? You dont thinkthe freezing sea water rushing into the engine room is a problem?

From what I could tell there wasnt much time spent on the soundfor this game, which is sad. When youre on the ocean, waves comingover the boat, the engine rumbling, and guys running back andforth sliding on the icy cold deck  the sound will be a visceralpart of the experience. All of that is lacking in this game, cannedeffects, or no effects are all youll get in Deadliest Catch.

Lasting Appeal

This is the point where Id normally talk about the onlinecapabilities of this game. Hypothetically you should be allowed tosign onto Xbox Live and join up to 12 players in a crab fishingseason to see which boat can catch the most crab. In reality if youcan even connect to the server, there wont be anyone there to playagainst so while there is online play, it wont add much to thelasting appeal of this game.

On the other hand if youre a diehard simulation fan, who enjoystorturing himself and loves the idea of running his own crab boatdown to the most specific detail  this game is going to offer alot of playability for you. The weather patterns changerealistically, the crab move across the ocean floor, you canhire/fire your crew at any time, and you can update your boat everytime you come to shore. Basically there is a lot to do here; ofcourse on the downside there isnt much fun to be had while doingit  but kudos to Liquid Dragon for fully capturing the day to dayactivity of running a crab boat.

There are other aspects to this game that add to some lastingappeal. The extras include videos from the show, there are missionsthat you unlock as you progress through the game that allow you todo things like race, throw the hook and navigate an icy waterway.These things are all nice additions but I wish instead of theinclusion of extras from the television show the development teamhad spent more time addressing some of the major problems that thepeople actually trying to play the game would be faced with.

Fun Factor

I can count the amount of times I found myself enjoying this gameon one finger. I must admit that the first time I reeled in a pot Ihad a sense of anticipation about being on the crab. That wasquickly replaced with confusion as I tried to figure out what mytext deck boss was trying to tell me, and how many crab had justoozed out of the plot in a colorless blob. The most fun that can behad is when Sig Hansen pops up on the screen to convey some wisdombecause he is so stiff and bad in front of the camera that hisvignettes are the highlight of the game.

The 411

Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm exists  and for that Ive got totake my hat off to Greenwave and developer Liquid Dragon. I likethat they took a chance, and I like that they spent so much timegetting the feel for what it takes to run a crab boat.Unfortunately none of the depth in simulation options can cover upthe poor graphics, long load times, terrible voice acting, sub parsound, and overall bad game play. If youre the type of person whohas always wanted to own his own crab boat but is afraid of waterthen there is enough content here to allow you to simulate yourdreams to your hearts content. If youre the type of person wholoves the Discovery channel show then this might be a game you wantto pick up just for the extras and video clips from the Bering Sea.However, if youre the type of person looking for a fun simulationgame that will provide you with hours of entertainment  there mustbe a better option out there and Id recommend you pass onDeadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm.