If you have ever watched The Deadliest Catch on the Discovery channel. And you are hoping for a great game adaptation! You are about to be wildly disappointed with The Deadliest Catch video game! If you have ever watched the Discovery channel. You are aware; that the camera crew follows teams of crab boat fishermen. While they are trying to bring in “the big haul” and make a lot of money doing so. The classic notion of no guts, no glory for modern reality television shows.
So, it’s only natural that with the booming popularity of the television show. The Deadliest Catch would get a video game adaptation. So naturally, I had to give it a try and find out what The Deadliest Catch game is all about!
It can be summarized in a singular word; monotonous. You would think that a game based on a popular television franchise would be overwhelmingly popular. Look at the Batman games, The Walking Dead, Ninja Turtles, etc… They all did their franchises right! So how does The Deadliest Catch compare to these titles?
The Deadliest Catch video game does not even hold a candle to them. It feels as if The Deadliest Catch video game was made by hiring students who are just out of a University and given a specific deadline and just learned the Unity Game Engine.
The Deadliest Catch game is a bland and basic game. Painfully basic. Allow me to walk you through just how basic. The Deadliest Catch is if you do not believe me.
You start the game. You buy supplies for your ship such as Buoy’s, Crab Pots, Herring Bait, Hooks, etc… You either load the map; to go to your desired fishing area. Or hop onto your boat, and it will take you to the best area, regardless. You will then use the crane to pick up a crab pot and mount it. Now you attach a Buoy to the crap pot. Now you grind up your herring into the bait and close the crap pot. Now lower the crab pot into the ocean. Now using the time-skip feature to wait for four in-game hours or waiting in real-time doesn’t matter. Now grab your throwing hook from storage. Use the throwing hook to grab the Buoy. Grab the crab pot with the winch. Now you open the crab pot. Now you dump out all the crabs. Now, you can sort the crabs by gender and size. This is so you don’t get fined. Then grab a basket to throw the small crabs and female crabs back into the ocean and grab the basket again to put your good crabs into storage. Now you grab the fish with the basket and turn them into a paste to make more bait and repeat until bored, or until you want to sell your supplies.
That is the step-by-step guide to playing The Deadliest Catch video game. Once you reach the dock if you reach the dock. You can even buy skill upgrades for $500 to get good at bartering and get better deals on the crabs you bring in to sell at the docks.
Now I did say if you get back to dock. The reason for this is that The Deadliest Catch game is extraordinarily buggy; at any point, during the step-by-step gameplay, the entire game could just not follow through with the mechanics and soft-lock you from progressing. The only solution to this is to close the game and restart it and lose any progress you have made up until that point.
But, outside of that description, there is not much to say about the game. It feels devoid of life in every sense of the world. There is no engaging dialog; there is no risk to life or limb out on the open seas. It is literally just that very brief and very poorly written a step-by-step guide on; how to catch crabs in The Deadliest Catch video game. There; is not even any other characters in the game to breathe life into it. You do not get to chat up a fishmonger. The game is just empty text windows devoid of life.
A very underwhelming and monotonous game and I found myself staring blankly at my screen. Staring at my reflection and questioning my life choices. That led me to this point in time. At which point in my life did I think reviewing The Deadliest Catch was a good idea?
I am not knocking the show; the show is good! The Deadliest Catch show is really good! But the game. It feels devoid of life, joy, and entertainment value. It feels as if it just exists for the sake of Discovery wanting to cash in on the game series; in some way. If they really wanted to make bank on something. I would have suggested selling plushies of the show’s favorite characters or creating “The Deadliest Catch” brand T-shirts to sell to kids and adults alike.
But The Deadliest Catch video game is nothing if not astoundingly disappointing.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!