Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm (Xbox 360)

Page 2

Each season lasts as long as it takes for the fleet of boats you're fishing alongside to meet its quota, and your goal is simply to make as much money as you can. Catching a lot of crabs is obviously a good start, but there's certainly more to a winning strategy than that. For example, because keeping crabs in your hold for too long will ultimately kill them and make them worthless, you have to time your visits to port in such a way that you maximize your profits without losing too much time that could be spent fishing. Some of the ports get really busy, especially toward the end of a season, so you also need to carefully choose where you dock to avoid having your cargo die while it's waiting in line. The strategy portion of Deadliest Catch can be engaging enough to suck you in for hours at times; it's just unfortunate that it's hidden beneath a thick layer of poor production values and repetitive gameplay.

If you feel the need to put your crab-fishing prowess to the test online, you can do so in a multiplayer mode that supports up to eight players and replicates the structure of the career mode almost exactly. The main difference when you play online is that while you can still fast-forward your boat to move around the map more quickly, doing so doesn't actually advance time. This is a problem for all kinds of reasons, one being that every hour in the game takes around two minutes of real time. Pots are normally left to soak for at least 24 hours (48 is ideal according to one of Sig's tutorial videos), so even games that are scheduled to last for just two days take a long time to get through--a lot of it spent doing nothing. Incidentally, searching for a quick match unsuccessfully will cause your screen to go black indefinitely, so you'll need to restart your console before you can try again.

Some much-needed variety comes in the form of unlockable missions that test your skills far more than the Career mode does. Not all of them are fun (parallel parking a crab boat in a crowded harbor springs to mind), but chasing whale poachers through rocky waters in a Coast Guard cutter makes for a welcome change of pace, and the five slalom courses that you race through in a skiff are arguably the most fun that the game has to offer. Other unlockables include a hook-throwing minigame that's fun for about two minutes, and a seemingly endless supply of low-resolution videos in which you can meet characters from the show and check out different areas of the featured boats. Most of the videos are short and disappointing, and lack any of the action that makes the Deadliest Catch TV show so compelling.

The poor quality of the videos is very much in keeping with the rest of the game's presentation. The frame rate is never anything but horrible, and the visuals are inconsistent to the point that the impressive water looks like it's from a completely different game than the clumsily textured land masses it surrounds. Default audio levels are all over the place as well, and while you can customize them, doing so shouldn't be a requisite for being able to hear one thing without risking being deafened by another.

Rounding out this disappointing package are bugs that can bring your play session to a premature end without warning. The most frequent of these simply cause your console to lock up, but occasionally the problems get a little more creative--by forcing your crew members into looping animations that prevent them from doing their jobs, for example.

Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm absolutely reeks of unrealized potential. There's fun to be had here, but you have to work harder than all of the Northwestern's crew combined to find it, and the haul won't even come close to meeting your quota.

See more CNET content tagged:

crew,

boat,

season,

career,

strategy game

Where to buy

Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm (Xbox 360): $29.99

store	price	in stock?	rating
	$29.99	Yes

see prices from 1 store

Compare prices for Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm

Amazon.com

$29.99