Psyclone has a reputation for building poor peripherals. They developed that reputation during the early Guitar Hero 3 craze. Although attractive, you'll find their products don't work well. For heaven's sake, PLEASE don't buy the bundle.
I'm NOT an avid fisher, but I wanted to do a little product testing before I gave this bundle as a gift. To my surprise, the game is actually pretty entertaining. The casting motion will be intuitive to anyone who's played a golf game. The tricky bits are the meters and accessories that you'll have to familiarize yourself with before you begin. This is one of those games you really need to read the manual for.
I give the game 4 stars. It gets repetitive and dull after a while, but that's why I don't fish. I'm sure your favorite angler will love this game. I deducted a star because of the speckles. I think this happens only for people who use the component cable (red/green/blue plugs) for the Wii system rather than the composite cable (red/white/yellow plugs). I get little speckles all over the screen especially in the light areas like the sky. It's probably an artifact from deinterlacing.
Unfortunately, I must give the bundle 1 star because the peripheral completely negates the entertainment value of the game. I want to save my fellow Amazonians the trouble of buying something that absolutely does not work. It is my job (literally) to identify poor design, and the Psyclone reel is a classic instance of form before function. The exterior simulates a rod & reel well. The end of the rod has a good weight which is helpful when casting. That's where the "good" ends. The handle is situated to the left of the reel. I personally would have preferred the handle to be on the right side. This is just a preference, so I'll write that off as a "neutral" criticism.
And now the bad. The nunchuk has a rubberized joystick. This rest within the plastic reel, where a circular pocket fits over the joystick. As the handle turns, this pocket orbits around the joystick axis. This is how you reel in the fish. However, the grippy rubber surface of the nunchuk binds against the smooth plastic surface of the pocket. When you turn the handle, there's a little resistance at first, then a lot of resistance, and then finally, the force overcome friction and there is a lot of popping as the joystick rubs against the plastic. When I took the nunchuk out of the reel, I could see where some of the rubber texture rubbed off. I'm sure with enough use in this apparatus, you'd eventually wear a smooth spot into the joystick and the apparatus MAY function as its designers intended.
The other flaw is with the plastic cover that goes over the reel. The plastic buttons for C and Z are held on with a small spring. This spring pops out of place rather easily. Thankfully, I realized this right away and popped it back in. Without it, the C button does not return to its original position and that will get very frustrating when you want to pull up your fish finder. The fact that the spring could fall off entirely and become a choking hazard for little ones is also a big no-no.
My last bit of engineering criticism is the IR port. The Wii-mote relies on the IR sensor in the front to calculate it's position/angle relative to the screen. In simple terms, if you block the sensor, your cursor disappears. Although there is an adequately sized hole for the sensor, the rod portion obscures line of sight. This issue is most relevant to people with under-mounted Wii sensors like myself. Those with above-mounted sensors may not experience this. Unless you hold the rod at an awkward downwards angle, you will not be able to find your cursor which makes navigation challenging.
And a final bit of advice for those who bought the bundle, make sure you have the controls set to configuration B.
BOTTOM LINE: Game is pretty good. Rod is awful. Don't buy the bundle. The game is plenty of fun without the addition of yet another ill-designed Wii peripheral.Get more detail about Bass Pro Shops: The Strike Bundle with Fishing Rod.
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