Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm (Xbox 360) Review
Posted by Joe Roche on 07.11.2008
Hit television shows rarely translate into quality video games, but can Liquid Dragon buck that trend with their attempt to bring a Discovery channel favorite to life on your gaming console?
Does anyone expect this review to be good? The best thing that this game has going for it is that I've reviewed it and actually played a copy of the game, meaning at least one person on this planet has in fact spent time with the title. Is it potentially the worst game of all time or did Liquid Dragon and Greenwave surprise me and present a fantastic simulator of fishing on the Bering Sea?
Lets find out.
Gameplay
Let me start off with the good – there is a lot to do in this game. If you’re looking for a relatively authentic Alaskan crab fishing simulator you won’t find a better game then this one. Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm starts you off with four introductory missions alongside Capt. Sig Hansen of the Northwestern. Most people who watch the Discovery Channel show will immediately recognize Sig, and if you don’t watch the show and for some reason pick up this game you’ll also instantly know that charisma isn’t one of his defining characteristics. Capt. Sig follows you around most of the game through pop up scenes where he’ll tell you what to do or more regularly what not to do. These first four missions walk you through the controls, driving the boat, using the menu system, fishing for crab, retrieving pots and basically every other aspect of being your own Alaskan crab boat captain. Here’s a tip – if you want to play this game for more then a couple of hours take notes during the introductory missions, because once they’re over you’re never going to remember how to do most of the things Cpt. Sig taught you.
After completing the first four missions you’ll unlock Career mode where you can either take the reigns of one of the five officially licensed boats (is that even an accurate way to describe these?) or customize your own boat to take out to the Bering Sea. After you customize your boat you’ll be in Dutch Harbor, Alaska waiting for the King Crab season to end. While in the harbor you’re going to have to buy bait, stack pots, chart a fishing course, and hire a crew. Each harbor has different crew members so keep that in mind if someone starts to get on your nerves while at sea – which they will. This might seem interesting – and the first time it is, but with difficult to navigate screens and almost impossible to read text this entire ordeal will be much more tedious then enjoyable.
With your boat stocked and your crew (all of whom can be assigned specific jobs) in tow you’ll be able to cast off from the harbor and head to the fishing grounds. A clock on the main screen will tell you how long you have until the season starts (note: do not drop pots before the season starts), but since you can’t read anything on the screen you’ll also be notified by radio when to start fishing. The actual act of fishing for Alaskan king crab (the first season is King Crab season) is pretty detailed. You chart a course according to information supplied to you through various charts you have access to, and you drop pots accordingly. After you’ve set your pots it’s basically a waiting game because they need to soak – the longer the soak, the better chance you have of getting a big haul. Once enough time has elapsed (I left at least 24 hours of soak) you can go fish in your pots. Unfortunately this is almost impossible through the auto-pilot feature that Cpt. Sig tells you about during the earlier missions so much of the time you will spend fishing will be a constant struggle to get close enough to the pots so that you’re random crew member can get the pots with the hook.
The king crab season is short – which would be nice to know heading into the season as I left most of my gear in the water until I was given a 24 hour notice, at which time I had to screw around the entire Bering Sea retrieving pots so that I made sure I could be back in harbor before the season ended to unload my crab. You’ll be told by the crew how many crab are in each pot, of course since I could barely read any of the on screen text I had no idea that when the season ended I would be dropping off the smallest catch for the least amount of money. Alas I choked it up to being a rookie captain, and hoped for a better Opilio crab season. After you’ve cashed out your catch and paid the crew you’re able to use the money to fix your boat, buy upgrades or hire/fire the crew. Again while the game play might be outright tedious and boring the level of detail put into providing a solid simulation is there. If you’re a huge fan of Alaskan crab fishing this game has all the tools to be a proper sim that you’ll enjoy for a long time.
Once my upgrades, fixes and crew were ready to go for the opilio crab season I loaded up the Blackdog and headed out to sea. I was warned by my Deck Boss that we shouldn’t leave on Friday but I spit in the face of superstition so off we went…bad idea! In the first day of the opilio season I had a crew member wash off the side of the boat, three crew members suffer serious injuries that required them to be helicopter lifted back to shore and my boat hit an iceberg and sunk. This might have been the worst stretch of luck any crab boat captain has ever had. Fortunately because the voice acting is so horrible in this game none of these events triggered the least bit of emotion from my crew, so at least nobody was there to tell me how much I sucked as we were all killed in the Bering Sea.
As I watched my boat sink to the bottom of the ice cold ocean I realized the biggest problem that is facing this game. The television show is popular because it allows us mere mortals to watch guys engage in what is accurately described as one of the world’s deadliest jobs. That isn’t something that translates well to a video game – when you remove the specter of death from the equation you’re just left with a very detailed albeit boring fishing simulator.
Graphics
When you’re making a video game about crab fishing in the Bering Sea there really isn’t much that you need to focus on in the graphics department. Basically you’ve got a boat, some water, less then a handful of guys and some crab. There is also ice, the sky, and some random shoreline which comes around every so often, but at its most basic there isn’t much detail that needs to go into creating a game like Deadliest Catch. Unfortunately, this game misses on almost every front graphically. Other then the water (and some stunning sunsets) there is almost nothing redeeming about the visuals in this game. The best thing that I can say about how this game looks is that if you were playing it on the original Xbox you’d be impressed – not so much on the 360.
My biggest gripe with the game is that because it is so deep, and there are so many options you’re confronted with a lot of text menus, and text dialogue. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason the text in this game is written in the smallest, most illegible print known to man. During my first King Crab season I didn’t have any clue how many crab I caught because I couldn’t read the numbers being given to me, and I had no idea what the percentage at the top of the screen said. I just crossed my fingers and hoped that I was somewhere around 93 instead of 13 when I decided to put a pot back in the water.
You’d also think the powers that be might have spent some time coming up with some impressive graphics for the crab as they’re loading onto your boat. You’d think that – but you’d be wrong, because when you pull up a pot and it’s opened on deck you’ll basically see a strange brownish red turd like substance ooze out of the pots. Frankly when you’re making a game about crab fishing it is inexcusable to me to not spend at a few moments making the crab look convincing since they are one of the main attractions of the game. Before anyone jumps on me claiming all I need is a high definition television and all of my text worries will be wiped away that’s fine – but if you’re making a game that will only be playable by those with HDTV I’m going to hold that against you anyways.
I could go on with the bad – every single fisherman in this game looks exactly alike. It’s almost as if the crowd from an EA Sports title walked off the set of their game and into a starring role in Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm. It’s not that big of a deal when you’re creating thousands of people to make them look like cookie cutter recreations of one another, but when you’re only tasked with a couple dozen fisherman you should be able to at least give them each their own distinctive wetsuits. Also while the boats are customizable they still come off as high quality last generation boats.
Can you tell the graphics issue really bothered me with this game? On top of all the things I’ve already said not only do you have to deal with sub par graphics, but you’ve also got to deal with long loading screens, and then the graphics that are there wind up being choppy when the whether starts to impact the gameplay.
Sound
The problems that I have with the sound on Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm might be due to my inexperience as an actual Bering Sea crab fisherman. However, during an hour long episode of the Discovery Channel hit show I don’t remember ever thinking – if these seagulls would just shut up I’d be able to understand what these people were saying. As someone who has spent a good deal of time on the ocean, and fishing I can say that it’s not unlikely that seagulls do fly around a crab fishing boat a lot during the day, however is that a detail so integral to the entire experience that it seems to have been made the focal point of the sound in this game? Personally I don’t think so; then again I am not a crab fisherman so I might be wrong. On the bright side while annoying the seagulls do sound authentic, and frankly that’s a step up from most of the other sound throughout this game.
A bigger problem then the non stop seagull chirping is the fact that the voice acting, or lack thereof in this game is horrible. You’ve got the ability to call five other captains on your radio, as well as speak to any member of your crew but you won’t find much difference in what anyone says, at any time, regardless of the situation. For shits and giggles I crashed my boat into a giant block of ice and as my boat was sinking to the bottom of the Bering Sea I contacted the guy who was in charge of the deck and he responded: “Everything is fine so far.” Is that so? You don’t think the freezing sea water rushing into the engine room is a problem?
From what I could tell there wasn’t much time spent on the sound for this game, which is sad. When you’re on the ocean, waves coming over the boat, the engine rumbling, and guy’s running back and forth sliding on the icy cold deck – the sound will be a visceral part of the experience. All of that is lacking in this game, canned effects, or no effects are all you’ll get in Deadliest Catch.
Lasting Appeal
This is the point where I’d normally talk about the online capabilities of this game. Hypothetically you should be allowed to sign onto Xbox Live and join up to 12 players in a crab fishing season to see which boat can catch the most crab. In reality if you can even connect to the server, there won’t be anyone there to play against so while there is online play, it won’t add much to the lasting appeal of this game.
On the other hand if you’re a diehard simulation fan, who enjoys torturing himself and loves the idea of running his own crab boat down to the most specific detail – this game is going to offer a lot of playability for you. The weather patterns change realistically, the crab move across the ocean floor, you can hire/fire your crew at any time, and you can update your boat every time you come to shore. Basically there is a lot to do here; of course on the downside there isn’t much fun to be had while doing it – but kudos to Liquid Dragon for fully capturing the day to day activity of running a crab boat.
There are other aspects to this game that add to some lasting appeal. The extras include videos from the show, there are missions that you unlock as you progress through the game that allow you to do things like race, throw the hook and navigate an icy waterway. These things are all nice additions but I wish instead of the inclusion of extras from the television show the development team had spent more time addressing some of the major problems that the people actually trying to play the game would be faced with.
Fun Factor
I can count the amount of times I found myself enjoying this game on one finger. I must admit that the first time I reeled in a pot I had a sense of anticipation about being on the crab. That was quickly replaced with confusion as I tried to figure out what my text deck boss was trying to tell me, and how many crab had just oozed out of the plot in a colorless blob. The most fun that can be had is when Sig Hansen pops up on the screen to convey some wisdom because he is so stiff and bad in front of the camera that his vignettes are the highlight of the game.
The 411
Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm exists – and for that I’ve got to take my hat off to Greenwave and developer Liquid Dragon. I like that they took a chance, and I like that they spent so much time getting the feel for what it takes to run a crab boat. Unfortunately none of the depth in simulation options can cover up the poor graphics, long load times, terrible voice acting, sub par sound, and overall bad game play. If you’re the type of person who has always wanted to own his own crab boat but is afraid of water then there is enough content here to allow you to simulate your dreams to your hearts content. If you’re the type of person who loves the Discovery channel show then this might be a game you want to pick up just for the extras and video clips from the Bering Sea. However, if you’re the type of person looking for a fun simulation game that will provide you with hours of entertainment – there must be a better option out there and I’d recommend you pass on Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm.
Graphics
4.5
Looks too much like a last generation game to be anything but average at best
Gameplay
4.5
Plenty of in depth simulation options - unfortunately none of them are fun
I played a bit of it and it's really not much of a 'game' at all - but it seems like it'd be something a fan of the series would probably still want to rent. I don't know why they didn't do what they do on the show...cut out all the boring bits.
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on July 11, 2008 at 01:39 AM
I rented this game the day it came out. Absolute piece of shit. This is by and far the most embarrassing and worthless game to ever touch ANY next generation console. The makers of this game should be damn embarrassed for putting something like this on the market. I refuse to write a review on this game as it was a 0/10. Shame on them for wasting my time and other fans of the shows time. This game brings absolutely nothing to the world of gaming and should be used as a coaster for my beer at best. If you read anything about this game that is a positive review they are being paid to say it. I cannot stress enough how hard it will be for anyone to make a game nearly as shitty as this game. Good review though Roche as you didn't bullshit anyone.
Posted By: John Curry (Registered) on July 11, 2008 at 02:49 AM
I'm probably biased as I am a huge fan of the show, but I think the reviewer was a bit harsh on the game. His main beef seems to be the graphics, but he admits he does not have an HDTV. As someone with a 53" DLP, I can verify that the text is VERY readable, the fisherman all look different, and in fact look authentically like the real people they are based on, and the graphics are fine. Why someone who is so overly concerned about graphics over gameplay chooses to sabotage himself by masochistically continuing to use a standard definition television, is completely beyond me. The graphics are no Halo 3, but this isn't a FPS either. I'll admit it would be a boring game for anyone who has to be continuously shooting things and blowing shit up, but I myself have found myself to be addicted to it, staying up until 3 AM playing it when I have to be at work at 8:30. I will state that I wish there were a way to speed up or automate the setting of pots, as that can get pretty repetitive. Once you've set a pot, you've set a pot. Retrieving pots is a lot more interesting however. Also, the reviewer was wrong about retrieving pots. It is easy to retrieve pots on autopilot SO LONG AS YOU SET THEM ON AUTOPILOT. That is the key. if they are in a straight line, it can be done fairly easily. Of course, you may need to use your bow thrusters to make slight course adjustments, but that's just another realistic part of the game, and not tedious at all. On the negative side, I will say after 22 seasons in career mode, that the game is a bit buggy. Many of the characters have gone to 10% pay with maxed out skill levels listed, but those skill levels dont always translate into a good cook, engineer, medic, etc. Also, some of the characters suddenly get to where they can not replenish their energy by resting and become useless with no energy, and you ending up having to take them to a port and release them so you can hire someone else. Mid-season, that is a hassle.
Posted By: johnflynn (Guest) on July 14, 2008 at 05:07 AM
My biggest gripe with the game is that because it is so deep, and there are so many options you’re confronted with a lot of text menus, and text dialogue. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason the text in this game is written in the smallest, most illegible print known to man. During my first King Crab season I didn’t have any clue how many crab I caught because I couldn’t read the numbers being given to me, and I had no idea what the percentage at the top of the screen said. I just crossed my fingers and hoped that I was somewhere around 93 instead of 13 when I decided to put a pot back in the water.
