Bass Hunter 64 Game Sample - N64

Also known as " In-Fisherman Bass Hunter 64", Bass Hunter 64 marks the first fishing title released for the N64 outside of Japan. Developed by Gear Head Entertainment and published by Take-Two Interactive in 1999, the game is primarily a Tournament-Style fishing game where players focus on catching the biggest and best bass out of a 5-Bass well. The player to score the most points and have the most weight will win the tournament.

Now, you might be looking at this and wondering why the heck it looks so blurry, since there are videos on YT with rich colors and fog-less backdrops... well, this is the real deal folks. Some people deemed the game to be so laughably bad that they loaded it up in an emulator with some added graphics filters and made it appear differently, but this is how it should look. To be honest, the game definitely has its problems; the graphics are borderline hideous (running at a lower-than-average resolution on N64), the music is almost midi-esque, and the gameplay is somewhat flawed (fish don't adhere to the rules outlined by the game too much, many fish are easy to catch or unrealistically hard to get, Fish Finder is kinda flawed, etc.), but the game itself isn't THAT bad.

The game does have a lot of real licenses and sponsorships, the lakes are a decent size, and you can at least drive at a decent speed. Penalties imposed for hitting land, cancelling fish battles and switching lures also boost the challenge a bit, and the game has a few cool cheats too. The game is lacking in modes, but what it does possess is at least done satisfactorily. I like the splitscreen view when you hook a fish and how you have to tug in different directions so as to not lose a fish, and some of them put up a fight. Players can also purchase upgrades with points they earn and the game gets trickier on later stages, forcing you to have more streamlined priorities. If you don't give two craps about games like this, BH64 probably won't change your mind, but I've played worse. This is a sample video going through a few hours on the lake in Tournament Mode captured on original hardware through the "XRGB-mini Framemeister Compact UpScaler". Note that all sorts of tests will be done with the XRGB-mini as its results vary from system to system and game to game (beats the pants off the old quality though). Enjoy.