Customer Reviews

Bass Pro Shops: The Strike Bundle with Fishing Rod

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Here's the real deal on this package. The game itself is pretty good, fun enough and it does what it says. The issue is the pole. I rarely complain about products; my attitude is usually "buyer beware" and I cut my losses, but I can't believe they released this pole product like it is. The reeling mechanism is not engineered very intuitively, thus it "falls off track" literally 2 out of every 3 casts or so. You'll have to pop it open, and tediously put it back into it's track constantly. Pretty much ruins the whole experience.

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.

I know this is a small complaint on an overall excellent game. without the reel, I'd rate the game one star because pressing the B button to reel in a fish really is BORING. to bring up the correct configuration for the peripheral you must use the controller B configuration.
Casting: Casting out the line in my opinion is the best part of the game. It takes a while to gain proper technique for a perfect cast.
Finding the fish: To find the fish you must use the fishfinder, which is also really neat. that button is on the nunchuck device. trust me, without the reel, this game is horrible, with the reel it's awesome.
The gameplay: So you're in the water looking at all of the beautiful plants looking for fish. actually at times, I felt like I was playing my PS3 because the graphics are so beautiful. the fish bites, you pull the reel up and WOW! you hooked him, and now you have the option of releasing some line by pressing the drag button setting which is separated into 5 increments. holding the rod down and holding the rod up seem to have an effect, but I'm not positive on that. after all that, you go to Bass Pro shops and upgrade your gear. I immediately upgraded my line to a 17 pound test, and bought the most expensive lures. You can also upgrade your rod, reel and boat, but I just bought the game today, so I'm not there yet. I have raced the boats though, and that is a lot of fun also. I'll tell you I bought this game without any knowledge of this company. I thought it would be worse, but I was surprised. I was actually eyeing the We Fish by Rapala, but I think it looked more kiddie, although it looked good also. Overall, I think I made a great choice and will continue playing it until I finish all of the challenges.
edit: one reviewer complained that he must constantly open up the reeling mechanism to have the reeling mechanism work effectively. the instructions that came along with the reel tell you to line up the nunchuck pad with the arrow on the inside of the supplied reel. I haven't had any issues.

This Bass Pro fishing game for WII is a blast! It took a little bit to figure out the fishing rod but it is actually easier to play the game without it. The rod is a little heavy for young people and for those of us with carpal tunnel it just is too bulky. But you can play without it and it is lots of fun. Offers a lot of different lakes to fish and fish to catch. You win prizes and ultimately qualify for the Bass Pro Invitational tournament. I would highly recommend this game.

Learn how to cast while NOT using the rod/reel, then put the controllers/nunchuck in the rod/reel to play... Also, you MUST use CONTROL CONFIGURATION B from the Option menu on the main screen for the reel to work. This game is fun, and once we figured out how to cast the rod/reel is awesome!

So I got this game for my 6 year old who loves to fish and in all honesty can pretty much hold his own versus many adults in real fishing. We got the bundle because heck what is fishing without a pole? So day 1 we were frustrated trying to control the boat and cast and my little guy was back to wanting to play Lego Batman. I did a little research today and found out that I had to set the controller configuration to Configuration B, this makes all the difference in the world. On configuraiton A we were trying to control the boat with the crank on the reel and I was thinking this is the dumbest thing ever! Also moving the Wii motion sensor to the top of the TV versus the bottom made a world of difference casting. It still takes a little getting used to but yesterday I had to cast for my son and after 5 minutes of working with him today he's casting 120 ft and as I write this he's shouting down the fish and weights he's landing. I'm a happy Dad and now can't wait 'til Spring to get back out on the pond!

Tight lines to y'all!

We just bought a Wii for Father's Day and since my husband is a fisherman, I bought him the fishing package with The Strike Bass Pro game along with the reel. We tried it that day and it was so frustrating with the rod that we gave up for a month or two. We tried again last week without the rod and we LOVE it!

My husband (who is an avid fisherman) is having the best time playing it along with my 9 year old son and 5 year old daughter.

We would recommend to first buy the 17lb line from Bass Pro shops and put it on. Then go to some Casting tournaments to earn some money and then buy the best baitcaster and trigger rod you can afford. You can then pull in big fish faster in the tournaments.

Read the manual before you start so you don't get frustrated! It's a lot of fun! But if you are like me and had no clue what to buy or not buy, don't even bother with trying to buy the package with the rod. It's lots of fun without it.

I fell over laughing when my sweetie gave me this as one of my Christmas gifts. How cool!
All summer, I'm biking to the nearby park lake with my reel to try my luck, so I was very psyched when I saw this (I'd never even heard of it.)

Now, you can use your Wiimote and nunchuck to play this but - meh. Here's the deal if you use the reel: You -must- actually read and follow the directions for assembly and gameplay; you will never figure it out on your own. And you -must- go into the first *in-game* menu (not the Wii game menu), go to options and choose configuration B (and note where the controls are.) You should also Google up and watch the 1-minute "Casting 101" video Bass Pro made. And *poof* the doors swing wide open to a new world of gaming fun.

Driving the boat is a blast, the graphics on land and underwater are beautiful and the fish finder helps you go where the fish actually are. You will be pulling up big ones in no time and boy do they fight! It's a really fun game.

The casting will take you sometime at first to master it. Once you do its a breeze. I like the the tension meter, fish finder and how accurate the fight for each fish is. I was use to catching smallmouth bass and than a 52lb striper latched on. The fight, time to reel it in was a nice change in pace.

Game is fun, took a little time to figure out how to cast, but after figuring out technique it was fun.