Fish em All! review

Time constraints meant that it was a toss-up between reviewing either this or Cocoto Platform Jumper, and it’s a damning indictment on Cocoto that Fish ’Em All! won out. Whereas Icarian (NyxQuest) and Let’s Catch are shining examples of what we love about WiiWare, this insipid, joyless, pointless nonsense makes us want to weep.

Despite the game’s very title setting our crap-o-scope sensors tingling, we actually thought we’d misjudged it when the title screen booted up. Why? Well, you’re greeted with a pair of good ol’ Southern boys plucking out a lovely Cajun tune on their banjos. There are three game modes to choose from, too! Fun to be had! Yes indeed, literally seconds of fun.

Regardless of the game mode, all you do is steer your fisherman left and right with the Nunchuk and swish the remote left or right to catch the fish that leap from the water in your net. You can jump and swish too, and sometimes you’re bothered by little animals on the shore, which you jump on to kill. Gloom.

Arcade mode sees you capturing enough fish to fill a meter before the time runs out, Challenge mode has you catching a set number of fish before the time runs out, and Fishtris is nothing like Tetris but does involve catching a set number of fish before the time runs out. We defy anyone to play this for longer than five minutes. Still, at least the title music’s catchy.

Jul 9, 2009