If your looking for something to laugh at, look no further. oh yeah, but you'll feel bad, because you wasted $20.
The Bad: Bad AI, Rampant in game advertising, bad collision detection, horrible texturing on everything, bad animation, manic sounds. My friend recently recieved a free copy of this game as his dad had written an advertisement for it. Neither of us had had high hopes for it, but I have to say that the gameplay turned out to be a bit worse than expected. Here's the thing about this game. The graphics, are about as good as something I could do if I trained with 3ds max for about a month. Check out the guy on the start menu's hands, and the character's faces. As soon as I saw it, I couldn't help but burst out laughing, they were so poorly done. The same goes for the ingame graphics. Simplistic at best, they are certainly not enhanced by the horrible textures which are for more poorly done than any of the previous tycoon games. (Though I guess the comparison is unfair, this game is by a different company). Their is zero texture blending, and since they only made one picture for each type of terrain (grass, sand, dirt etc..) everything has a somewhat gridlike appearance. And then, to top iit all off, the edges of the map abruptly cut off in an incongruent , blurry photograph which despite its sad state only serves to further demean the games actual graphics, which need no further demeaning. To go with the graphics there is also equally competent animation. Characters walk (or should I say stagger and waddle) with arms outstretched and a bowlegged stance, looking much like escaped tenants of some mental hospital. Unfortunately, ingame character graphics are also a bit disproportianate, one 10 foot tall female with huge, skinny legs comes vividly to mind. Sounds are... well.... rather manic. You'll here happy fisherman letting forth deranged giggles and exaggerated exclamations as you pan around your lake, accompanied by suggestive motions towards their fishing poles. The "music" is best left off, it's not really a sound track, more of a staticy chorus of digital frogs accompanied by various jumbled "crowd" sounds. And now, we come to.... ah yes, the advertising. But for this aspect, this game could have maybe been made by some misguided and unimaginitive teenagers of about my age. However, I am forced after witnessing this monstrous abuse of in game space, to conclude otherwise. Berkley's fishing supply and Toyota Tundra ads are especially prevalent, occupying almost every suitable space within the game. My friend tells me that real fishing tournaments often show similar conditions, so maybe they were going for "realism". However, this is one aspect of real life that they could have left out altogether. Now, usually, when you get bored in tycoon games, you can just reek havoc on your little empire. I remember with fondness making vast settlements in Roller Coaster Tycoon, with hundreds of innocents pacing their lone sidewalk square, supplied only with a hamburger stand (priced at $40 dollars for a hamburger) a bathroom (priced at $20 dollars per whiz) and an atm (so that the prisoners wouldn't run out of money). Then every 5 minutes I would sacrifice someone in a great pool of water which was surrounded by dinosaur bones and large flaming torches. Aah, those were the days. Unfortunately, Bass Tournament Tycoon has chosen to leave out this element of gameplay. You can't fence people in (due to almost nonexistent collision detection) you can't drown them (they just keep on walking when lured into deep water) and even when in desperate need of a dump they won't go to the bathroom if it's priced over $4. WHAT KIND OF A GAME IS THIS?!?!?!? Oh yes, the game also stutters on even the most high end systems, I forgot to mention that part. This game may be the best fishing game ever made, but that is because there are no good fishing games that have been made yet. I mean, you aren't even allowed to FISH for God's sake! You will get a few good laughs out of it, in the beginning, but then, quite suddenly begin wishing that you had put that $20 bucks towards a copy of Supreme Commander. My advice is, get an older (and cheaper) tycoon game, such as Roller Coaster Tycoon, and leave this one on the shelf (assuming it's even on any)