The Strike - Hands-on Preview

• by Patrick Shaw
• April 21, 2009 00:00 AM PST

See why The Strike is shaping up to be the best fishing video game ever created.

If you've ever played a fishing game, you may have noticed that they rarely have the level of polish as other sports games. Even inane sports like volleyball, surfing, and bike riding have a handful of decent games, so why do games like Sega Bass Fishing and Rapala Tournament Fishing feel so clumsily slapped together?

Sometimes I get the suspicion that the reason not as much sweat and blood is poured into fishing titles is because the bulk of people buying them aren't exactly avid gamers and developers take advantage of that, figuring they won't know the different between even a passable fishing game and a rancid bucket of fish entrails.

After years of wretched angling video games, The Strike seeks to shatter the trend of bad fishing games, and from what I've played of the Xbox 360 version of the game, it looks like it's achieving that very thing. For a game to give me tingles after playing it for less than an hour, they're definitely doing something right.

The Madden NFL of the Fishing Genre

A lot people don't know this about me, but I'm actually a hardcore fisherman and try to sneak in a visit to the lake by my house at least once a week. A few weeks ago, my friend Buddy and I were fishing for trout, talking about what would make the perfect fishing game.

The crazy thing is that several of the ideas we talked about wanting are actually in The Strike, such as featuring a robust stats system and being able to drive around on a boat so you can pick a spot where you cast out, instead of having the game choose for you. What's the point of fishing if the game tells you exactly where the damn fish are? As an added bonus, you're not just stuck with one boat as the game boasts a number of bigger and better boats you can win by entering fishing tournaments.

Even a novice fisherman will tell you that one of the most important things to getting fish to bite is knowing where they like to hang out. I could tell that The Strike's dev team has really gone the extra mile in bringing the lake to the player, making them feel like they're in control of where they fish and what kind of luck they'll have reeling in some river monsters.

In addition to steering boats on The Strike's ten lakes, which are all modeled after real world fishing locations, there are also different hidden spots scattered throughout levels for you to discover. And if you're in the mood to just boat around without fishing for a while you can also partake in boat racing mini-games.

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