The best thing to eat at the China Buffet is the King Crab legs. What makes them so delicious is not only the butter you dunk them in, but the sheer amount of energy it takes to get them. Deadliest Catch is a reality show on the Discovery Channel that depicts the lives of deep sea crab fisherman in the Bering Sea. (That’s the sea between Russia and Alaska). The reward is high, but the life is tough and death is an everyday actuality. I ventured into the Alaskan Storm and couldn’t get off the boat soon enough.

Deadliest Catch is a lot like the old Flight Simulator games. You don’t get to kill anyone or take over their boat. You just cast off and find the crabs. The missions offer some variability in rescuing other boats, discussing strategy with other captains, and other menial tasks. You can only be the captain and not a deckhand which is very limiting. Most actions are just pressing the right button or steering the ship to pick up traps that have been laid out. The boat moves very slow. Slower than old people fuck slow.

So if the game is a little entertaining and the one liners from the crew are so bad its funny, then why does this game fall flat? The graphics. This looks like an early Xbox game. It looks bad. The water is not half bad but everything else looks 1998. When we have seen what the next gen systems can do, its a slap in the face when they are asking full price for a game that looks a decade old. For example, when you catch King Crabs, they slide out in an amorphous sheet instead of single crabs. The ship has jagged borders on it and the crew looks like Half Life 1 characters.

There is an online mode, though you will have a hard time finding a game. The career mode gets stale real quick when its becomes repetitive and slow. This game had some good ideas in breaking outside of the paradigms of present day games with the flooded FPS and MMO of the world. Nevertheless, expecting someone to pay 60 bucks for a last gen title, especially one that offers so little diversity in its presentation is just wrong. I know it’s a game based on fishing and you should not be at the edge of your seat at all times, but this could have been a fun XBLA game, not a full priced title. If you watch the show, and I do, just rent this first. It’s one of those games where the novelty wears off way too quick and you can only make so many fishing jokes before this games goes belly up.

Overall: 4.5 out of 10 

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