acquasea Bass Pro Shops: The Strike - Nintendo Wii (Game Only)

I bought this game for Christmas for my 4 year old great grandson because his father (my adult grandson) told me that my great grandson loved to fish. He said if I bought this game for his son, then they could play it together. After Christmas was over I asked my grandson how his son liked playing the game. He said that he himself really enjoyed the game but that it was too hard for my 4 year old great grandson. I don't know if my great grandson can't play the game because it is too hard for his age, or if he just has not played the game enough to learn how to play it so I am giving it a good rating because my grandson said that it was a lot of fun to play. I would recommend this game for older children and for adults, but I don't know if I would recommend this game for very young children because of what my adult grandson said about his 4 year old son not being able to play it.

I bought the game without the rod peripheral. I'm not a fisherman but I go fishing with my dad for father-daughter bonding and wanted to get him more into games with some fishing games. After some time with it, I've found that Pro Bass Shops: The Strike is fairly difficult for anyone with little gaming experience to use - it relies mostly on timing shakes of the remote and button presses rather than a natural-feeling casting motion. Since I'm a gamer, this wouldn't be so much of a problem for me but anyone who's just a fisherman and not a gamer (like my dad) might want to try other games.The Strike generally uses the Wii remote's "shake" functions for any kind of cast action like starting and stopping the cast, and you would think this would be a good thing until you try it. In order to cast your line you need to shake the remote once to start the backwards swing, once to swing the pole forwards at the top of the arc, and then release the B button to let the line out. To start the swing you have to shake the remote rather strongly and if you were imagining a pole in your hands it would be as if you were trying to whip the person behind you with the tip of your pole, and then when you cast forward it's like you're actually trying to throw the pole itself rather than just the line.The timing is also arbitrary on when you need to swing the pole back and forward to cast and is much longer than a natural cast of the line. Basically you have to watch the screen and when the marker on the screen is in the green zone, you have to shake the remote to start the forward cast motion. Then when the marker reaches another green area, you have to release the B button.I played this game for a little while to figure everything out before handing it over to my dad so I could show him how to play it, and I think it took me about 30 minutes before I figured out things well enough to be able to cast a line. This game would be much better served with a nice tutorial or "first time player" hint mode of some kind.The controls are better for things other than casting - generally they work fine with occasional problems for non-gamers.Once you get past these fairly significant flaws, the game seems pretty solid. There's lots of options to buy gear and there are new locations to unlock, giving the game more longevity and making it more interesting. You have lots of customizability options for your avatar - I managed to get one that looked just like my dad. You also have more casting options than just an overhand cast, like sidecasting or underhand casting.If I had been buying this game for myself then I would have taken it back just because of the difficulty in casting, but my dad seems to like it although not as much as he likes the Rapala one. He actually sat down and played The Strike for about 30 minutes before he lost the hang of timing for casting the line and wanted to put it down. Just for comparison I think he played Rapala Pro Bass Fishing for more than an hour. When I'm not there to help him I doubt he'll play The Strike much.Overall the game is not terrible but has some significant flaws with the casting controls, which can be mitigated by anyone good with games requiring timing skills. My recommendation for non-gamers: don't buy it.

Here are some tips, make maps of the lakes & way points, at the way points wright down what you caught. So when you go to a tournament you know where to fish for what your fishing for. There are ways to make money, with that $$ go & buy a top rod & reel, your casting problems will be gone. Just cause you bought the right rod & reel doesn't mean your using them, when you get out there on the lake click on gear pull up the rod click on it then do the same the reel & line now your fishing with them. 90% of the time I use plastic unless the cat fish won't let me then I go to swim baits. Fish career if you want to fill up your trophy room. Don't forget your drag you'll need to work it to get legendary fish. last tip I use controller & numchuck only GO HAVE FUN !!

If you are considering purchasing the Wii version of this game, pass. You can do without the frustration. It is nearly impossible to cast, and that should be the easiest thing to do with a Wii. The game requires a nunchuk, but it can ONLY be used for driving the boat and setting your casting target. It is disabled on ALL menus, where the Wii remote cross MUST be used. This product was obviously raced thru for development, and the Wii version was an afterthought. It shows.Definitely not worth the money, even at a steep discount.I'd have given this a zero stars if I could have -- it really is that bad.

I just got this game and after reading through the manual (always RTFM) and getting familiar with the basics...I jumped into it...a couple of hours later, frustration.The graphics reminds me of the Grand Theft Auto games, like a cross between toon and sim. The underwater graphics are hard on the eyes...lots of stuff but again, almost cartoon like...and way too much stuff...you can't tell if your looking at a distant weed, algae, minnows or dirt on your eyeballs.The casting gauge is similar to the swing gauge used in Golden Tee 98 for PC, nearly impossible to get right. The sensitivity is nil (and I have my controllers setup for maximum control).The GPS is almost useless...a map would have been better...and that fish finder is worse. I've been out fishing with fish finders and the one in the game reminds me of one I used back in the 90s...it made a nice boat anchor.I've seen better fishing simulation in another game but this one has a lot of plus points with the sheer amount of details. Once you master the casting, learned what all the baits do and how to use them, figured out how to find fish in the huge lakes, it's almost (not as good as another game) like going out and fishing for real.I really like fishing sims...as do several members of my "family"...we were hoping this game would fit the bill for fishing simulation but...the shortcomings in playability and controls aren't quite what we had hoped for. It's more fun to get up at 3 a.m. and drive for 2 hours then waste an entire day on a dead lake.