If you don't recognize

Action Bass has most of the elements any good fishing game should have. Challenge and Extra Mode are the competitive modes; Free and Aquarium Mode are non-competitive, the first being a way to try out the fishing areas before going into competition and the second (just like it sounds) is where you get to watch those crazy bass in action, swimming in a virtual aquarium. I actually invented a fifth mode, called 'Party Mode.' In this mode, you catch some fish, turn on Aquarium Mode, invite your friends over and impress them with your cool TV Aquarium. I think this on its own is probably worth $9.99, and the effect only gets better the longer your party runs.

But seriously, I wouldn't have any real beef with the available game modes, except I couldn't really decipher how you're supposed to catch fish in this game! This make the competitive modes really frustrating; you can't proceed without winning, and this means catching some fish. Lures can be fitted to adapt to depth and visibility, but the tuning to make one lure more effective than another seemed really out of whack. The other element in the game that gets frustrating is a poor camera. The camera is engineered to respond intelligently whether the lure is on top of the water or submerged, the idea being that you'll always have a view of the fish before they bite. It sounds good in theory, but the camera itself turned out to be about as smart as a screen door on a submarine. Everything is fine if your lure is underwater, but most of the lures either float or only submerge partially. The response to this is a camera that is constantly switching views and giving you motion sickness, bigtime.

Winning each level in Challenge Mode earns new lures and opens up Extra Mode. Challenge Mode also unlocks a new area to fish, beyond the 4 areas available from the start. For the competitive modes, you're given a time limit and a quota in each level, and only by placing third or better can you move ahead. When a fish bites, the camera stays on the fish and a 'line tension' meter becomes visible. I could never really tell a difference in how I moved the control stick during these fights, but it is possible to reel in too fast and break your line, or let a fish have too much slack and get away. A similar meter shows up before a catch, but this time as a 'lure action' indicator. I could never really figure this one out, but it fills up more as you reel in the lure and get jiggly with it.

Frustration in this game comes mostly from poor elements in gameplay and unbalanced difficulty. Landing fish is really easy, but getting them on the line seems totally random. Even following the recommendations in the manual for what lures do well in what stages, I found I could toss a lure right into a bass and...nothing! Especially with the tight time limit in Challenge Mode, most people will get really tired of coming up empty handed and not feeling like they can do much to affect a different outcome.

Action Bass is compatible with the special fishing control for PlayStation [SLPH-0063], and supports analog and vibration with a DUALSHOCK controller. If you don't have a fishing controller, this won't be the game to buy it for. Casting is so dumbed down that you can only move side-to-side, press the (X) button and watch the line spin out. There's no 'power meter,' no way to adjust how far you want to cast and no consideration for lure, line or pole weight. Once you get a lure in the water, the only options available are reel, jig, reel faster and jig faster. Hooking a fish once it bites is pretty much automatic, versus needing to set the hook, and after that you simply watch the 'line tension' meter to make sure the line doesn't break or go slack. Land a big one, and you'll be given the option to keep it or throw it back. Keeping fish is what opens up Aquarium Mode and lets you save them for viewing later on.

What it really comes down to is that Action Bass has enough fishing action to merit the $9.99 price tag, but anyone in search of a challenging fishing game should consider