Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm

Frame rate excluded, the developers at Liquid Dragon Studios should feel proud to have created a game from very little source material. Who knew that crab fishing could be fun?

It's a very involving and at times complex game, with numerous controls and menus to learn. We dig the slow moving but rewarding gameplay as well as the numerous video clips from the show, but the horrible frame rate, long load times and lackluster visuals keep Deadliest Catch from being the king of simulations.

Deadliest Catch makes a fine companion to the TV show, but it has some serious bugs throughout the game. Only hard core DC fans will like this game. Everyone else will go, "huh?"

The game mechanics are sound, but the subject matter doesn't make for a compelling game.

The waves, water swells, storms, ice floes all make for a very immersive environment that just feels right. Real voices with real crab fishermen (and women) and tons of video make the title slightly more robust. Unfortunately, there are clipping issues and some bugs that make what would've been a very polished game feel like it released maybe just a bit too early.

The delivery of the crabbing experience is as right on as can be, and the fact that this game was made at all can be construed as a step in the right direction for an industry overwhelmed with the same old shooters, RPGs and trite hack-and-slash titles. But the game lacks any polish, and that's certainly a huge negative.

Just completing a single string of pots (the cages the crabs crawl into on the ocean floor, trapping them) in Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm is a long and drawn out experience, with a difficult to master control scheme and layers of strategy and management to contend with. On top of that, it will literally make you seasick. In other words, a total PC game.

Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm could have been a very good game if the developers would have sped up the action and further fleshed out the game's more cerebral portions. Unfortunately, the game gets caught between simulation, strategy, and action, and it doesn't pull any of them off.

I am sure the game will sell well based on game recognition alone, but as it stands Deadliest Catch nowhere near captures the excitement or intensity of the Discovery Channel series.

This disappointing strategy game isn't nearly as engaging as the Discovery Channel show it's based on.

We say, stick to the show. [Sept 2008, p.79]

The problem with Deadliest Catch is that from top to bottom, it just doesn’t work as a fun gaming experience. The graphical presentation is decidedly last-gen, the control scheme is needlessly complicated, the gameplay mechanic has all the depth of a bowl of crab bisque, and it is quite simply boring.