I believe Washington Irving had something when he said "There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a pure serenity of mind." After all, fishing can be a quite contemplative hobby, and most attempts to translate it into game form focus on the player's patience and attention. Certainly this is the case for 2/3s of Radical Fishing, Dutch developer Vlambeer's new simple idea game release. Of course, the other 1/3 is spent blasting sea creatures into bloody chunks in exchange for cash and upgrades. But hey, we all find serenity in our own way, right?
Each round of Radical Fishing is split into three distinct mouse-controlled phases. First, cast your line into the ocean with a click of the mouse, and play fish avoidance as your hook travels deeper and deeper. As soon as you snag a fish or run out of line, you immediately begin reeling in and phase two begins. Here, you attempt to snag as many fish as you can upon your hook, while making your way up to the surface. Once you reach the surface, all the fish you've collected are flung into the sky and phase three begins. Using the mouse and your collection of weapons, you'll be pumping the airborne sea-dwellers with as much hot lead as you can manage. Each eviscerated ocean-dweller grants you money, some more than others. You then use this money to purchase upgrades for use in the next round, such as longer lines, more powerful guns, water-clearing chainsaws, electrifying toasters, and others. You'll need all of them to reach the treasure that's rumored to be at 500 meters deep. Happy fishing!
There are those who won't see the appeal in mincing innocent fish into a cloud of red. These people are probably much more mature than I am. Even ignoring the inherent strangeness of the premise, Radical Fishing's MS Paint graphics and MIDI-style music make for a pretty surreal time. A fun and addictive time, certainly, but undeniably surreal. There isn't really much of a plot beyond striving to reach the bottom of the ocean to fill your fish encyclopedia, and not much of an end goal beyond earning achievements and posting high scores. However, while each of Radical Fishing's three phases would be lacking individually, the combination makes for more than the sum of its parts.There is a charming simplicity and impish humor to Radical Fishing that makes it a nice little experience. It just goes to show that if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day; give a man a game about fish, he'll play for, I dunno, maybe a week or so?
Yay, I finally got the
coelecanth
by
starting at 200 m and catching a fish right away. Then I used the boost to
go up very slowly until I spotted the very shy and rare blue and brown fish and maneuvered under it to catch it.
Ended with $8156.
lol, now this is what a computer game is. Simple, stupid, crazy, and addicting.
Bought everything =D
I found it funny how the fish hook emits bubbles underwater. I didn't know fish hooks could breathe.
That hook is probably a living thing, seeing how easy it is to maneuver that hook. I thing i played this game quite a few days ago on kong. Pretty fun but wont last anyone very long.
I like the concept of the game, and I would have liked to play a little longer. However with my macbook I can't run the game properly in either firefox nor crome. Crome usually run all flashgames with no problems, but this one keeps hanging, when I use the boost or when I shoot fish. Too bad for such a simple game, that it takes so many resources.
Seems to be really stretching Flash when you have a whole bunch of fish/parts in the air. Still, fun enough that I spent way too long playing it tonight.
Ugh. I'd like to enjoy the game, but the small screen and the frantic clicking while trying to shoot a ton of fish causes me to repeatedly click one of the ads right next to the game, which then closes the game window and replaces it with the ad.
ha-ha, that was cool fishing !
I god a treasure !
Ha! Funny that you'd post this now; I just played (and beat) this game a couple days ago. I agree, it's fun, and so much is in the combination. The music is really the kicker, tho. It sounds like a slowly dying calliope.
I do wish the game would have either been a bit more complex (fish do different things, have different effects on your scores like the jellyfish, etc.) or more simple (no endpoint and no "treasure"). Once you've actually gotten to the bottom (which took me about 45 minutes), there isn't much of a reason to play anymore.
One fish did elude me the
coelocanth. I saw it a lot on the way down, but NEVER on the way up. Got it a couple of times, but forgot I had the toaster equipped. Thought it might become more common in deeper water, but no - do NOT equip the larger weights or the diver until you score a coelocanth. I did, and never got another chance at him.
Menschenjaeger, you can go back to a lighter starting weight. See my first comment for how I caught the coelecanth.
I'm having the same problem others have mentioned: the game lags when I'm shooting the fish, especially with a lot of fish in the air. Of course, this means that when I get an especially big haul, I lose most of them. This is a major flaw.
lol it's funny because i caught a coelacanth whatever with the diver?
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