Fishing is a bit of a marmite sport, some people love it and some hate it; luckily for all the haters out there Fishing Kings HD has come along so you don’t have to worry about sitting on the bank of some dreary canal on a Sunday with the rain lashing down on you.
Fishing Kings HD is a bright, pretty looking title with half decent controls and a pseudo Pokémon-esque draw to it. The game uses the touchscreen and accelerometer to good effect – you’ll cast your lines by tilting the device towards you and then quickly flick it away. Once your line is cast and your lure is in the water the camera shifts so you can see the world under the deep blue.
There are 15 fishing locations to visit in Fishing Kings HD including saltwater fishing in the Bahamas. In each locale you’ll be carrying out missions such as catching a certain number of fish or entering Tournaments where you’ll not only be required to catch the right sort of fish, they’ll have to be over a certain size and you’ll need to catch them within a certain time limit (things can get quite tense). In order to attract the right sort of fish you’ll need to have the right sort of lure, and to unlock these you’ll have to compete in Tournaments and, thankfully, these are all held in your handy little PDA. As you progress you’ll also need to upgrade your fishing pole, reel and line for stronger varieties; as the fish get bigger they also get harder to catch!
All in all, it’s pretty relaxing to play and you’ll need to have a bit of patience as you will simply have to wait until a fish looks like it wants a bite of your bait. You then twitch your phone to agitate the lure and hopefully draw the fish in. Once the fish bites you need to do another flick of the wrist to ensure it’s hooked. Then the real challenge is to try and wrestle your catch back to the boat. Unsurprisingly, the fish don’t want to get caught, so you’ll have to tilt your phone in the direction that the fish is trying to escape in to ensure the tension on the line doesn’t get too harsh or you’ll snap your line and loose the fish completely. After tiring the fish out, you’ll reel it back in and just before you get to the boat you’ll do one last flick and jobs a good ‘un – Fish & Chips for dinner! All in all, the controls work pretty well but sometimes you’ll find yourself having to flick your phone more than once just to get a line to cast.
With over 30 species of fish to catch depending on your location, Fishing Kings HD really started to have a sort of Pokémon-esque draw on us, we just had to find out about every single damn fish. Likewise we weren’t going to be happy until we’d got them all! The major niggle we had was that there’s no multiplayer included at all which cuts down on the replayability somewhat.
Whilst the game requires a little bit of perseverance before you can get into it, it really surprised us, not only because of how much fun it was but also how it had us coming back time and time again – normally the closest we get to fish is through Captain Birdseye but Fishing Kings HD caught us hook, line and sinker!
