We took a little time out recently to have an extended play of Masangsoft’s new f2p fishing simulator World of Fishing, currently in beta the game allows players to head out into the world, sailing on various oceans and have a “realistic fishing experience”. Putting it to the test we spent a couple of hours checking things out, we’re not big fans of fishing simulators, or fishing at all for that matter, so we didn’t expect to get that much from the game.

First impressions were that the game is generally quite basic and at times bare bones, from the initial character creation that gave us a few standard characters and a couple of ways to tweak them slightly, the primary customization is done through earning or buying clothes. Gear, whether clothes or equipment, can be access from the shop primarily and is all locked by level, with the option to spend real cash then it avoids the pay to win element, but honestly there just wasn’t enough gear to create that much variety between players; not that it matters as it’s not really a game for showing off your threads. The only difference perhaps being a boat, each player starts with a small dingy type boat and overtime can upgrade and purchase an actual speedboat, which definitely has more bragging rights than a new fedora.

Equipment however ism much more important, split between various components such as rods, reels, lines, hooks and bait players will need to upgrade their kit to explore the newer location (different fish require different types of bait) and gain the extra stats. Fishing is put into practice through two different game modes; Team play and Freestyle, the former being a versus match against other players competing to earn points from catch big fish, quality fish, or just a lot of fish. Freestyle is considerably more chilled out and where we spent most of our time, fishing at our own leisure, driving around checking out the scenery, it actually wasn’t all that bad and we can see the appeal of just shooting the breeze with those players that become familiar names whilst catching a couple of fish.

The mechanics of fishing work really well, starting out we had to cast a line into the water using the “Cast” button and then aim a target to where we wanted to cast to, though in all honesty we don’t know what difference it makes as we would always cast, fish would just swim off after a while and then suddenly another fish would come out of nowhere and snag the bait. Once the bait has been taken a pop of your float appears and we have to time the hook when the fish goes under, this may be more important as you take on tougher fish, but it didn’t matter too much in the early game. Timing it right does however stun the fish and so the battle is on, the aim is to try and tire out the fish and deplete its stamina gauge, to do this required us to keep tension on the line by using the left mouse to reel it in then slackening it off if it got too high/tense and would ultimately snap. The back and forth, maneuvering the boat, swiping the mouse to do a strike and stun the fish again; it’s simple but it’s effective and quite fun. The tougher the fish the more demanding the battle and the more stamina bars we needed to deplete before we could finally land the fish. Gear obviously comes into play, having stronger lines and faster reels will all go to making catching fish easier; the funny thing is that it’s the difficulty that makes the game interesting, without the challenge then it’s a pretty boring sim.

Levelling up is a slow and steady process, typically done through catching fish and completing “quests”, i.e. missions that tell you to go and visit the places you pretty much had to visit anyway and catch fish you were already going to catch. It’s pretty pointless, but it’s a way to rewards players so we won’t complain. Unlocking new locations and the option to catch more exotic fish is the general goal, with over 300 fish to catch and display.

In all honesty there isn’t all that much depth to the game, the mechanics you learn at level one are still exactly the same hours in, the scenery is different, the fish are different and your clothing has probably been upgraded to look a little better, but it is absolutely the same game throughout… and you know… that’s not too bad. The game is never going to win awards for being a thrilling adrenaline pumping experience, though landing a fish after a prolonged fight is always pretty rewarding, but the casual nature of the game, the simplicity, the laid back nature and chatting with other players whilst casting in a line, it was all quite endearing. If players can handle the pretty simple and linear progression and not play the game like they need to “complete it” and just be happy picking it up for a little while to play and chat socially with other players then it’s not a bad little game.

SCORE:

• Graphics: 4


• Gameplay: 5


• Performance: 9

• Pros: Lots of fish to try and catch, good fishing mechanics, each fish has links to a wiki for more info about it.


• Cons: Very linear content, the gameplay becomes tedious, restricted progression.

Rating: 6

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2015 at 11:28 am and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.