FLW Professional Bass Tournament
Manufacturer: Wizard Works / Window Painters (1999)
Price: $19.99
Genre: Tournament Fishing
System Requirements: Pentium 166 or faster, Windows 95 or above, 32 MB RAM (64 recommended), 100
MB HDD space (330 MB for full install), CD-ROM, PCI or AGP 3D accelerated video card highly recommended, DirectX compatible soundcard.
... DESCRIPTION: FLW Professional Bass Tournament is a bass fishing game with a strong emphasis on tournament play
and is based purely on the popular Wal-Mart FLW Bass Tour. The game features impressive 3D graphics and thorough gameplay.
While the game is centered around tournament play, there are practice options to enjoy a leisurely day on the lake without
the stess of a tournament atmosphere. Fishing, while being the centerpiece of the game, is not the only activity. The game
also features a fairly realistic driving model for the Ranger fishing boats.
THE GOOD: FLW has many great features in it. The highlight of which is the 3D graphics. The animation is very good, the 3D renderings quite impressive and the texturing well done. The rolling waves on the lakes add a nice ambiance to the fishing scene and the underwater camera angle gives a nice view of what is actually happening with the game.
The selection of fish in FLW is also quite large, featuring most of the fish you would expect to find. In addition, this is the first fishing game I have seen to include carp. Driving the boat is also a cool feature, though it takes a little practice as the turning is quite sensitive. The selection of lakes is very complete, as it follows the real FLW tour and actually includes a long stretch of the Mississippi River, with many back water areas as well as the main river.
I also greatly enjoyed the tournament weigh in method, as it follows the FLW round robin weigh-in. This adds a little bit of excitement to the weigh in process instead of simply splashing scores on the screen.
... .THE BAD: There are a few things about FLW that I didn't like, though none were a great deterrent from enjoying the game. My most unsettling dislike was being overwhelmed by in game advertising. Everywhere, on every screen, at every available opportunity, there was a logo, slogan or brand name. Many were subtle, such as the choice of paint schemes on the boats which in traditional style had sponsorship stickers all over them.
Some were associated with particular items, such as rods, lures or fish finder. But the most blatant actually rotated on rolling ads corner of the menu screens. Products such as Uniroyal tires, which may be a sponsor of the FLW tour, but has nothing to do with computer fishing. This is a minor complaint, but it seems that product placement and in-game advertising has become much more invasive and blatant recently. Another detriment to the game is the limited tackle selection. While you have many choices over your rod and line (of course, you specify the brand name) it seems that the lure selection is a bit thin
when compared to other fishing titles. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of lures available to cover most any situation, but the details are what seperate good games from great ones.
THE VERDICT:
Overall, I really enjoy playing FLW. It is different than that other fishing title, in both good and bad ways. The negatives of the game are few are far between (except for the advertising which is much and close between). It is not quite as fancy as some other fishing games, but does a good job of focusing on catching fish in a tournament setting. This is a solid catch, a nice keeper bass in the 5 pound range. Just short of being a true "HAWG" but definitely one to remember.
Reviewed by Tom Shiflet
8-17-99
