Angling at Home Eliminates Fish Stories

By AARON CURTISS

Dec. 9, 1999 12 AM PT

It’s amazing how quickly lying comes back to a person, how swiftly the truth disappears in the mist hanging lazily over still water. Put a rod and reel in his hand and a man’s abilities are limited only by his imagination.

Not 10 minutes into playing “Sega Bass Fishing” for Sega Dreamcast I found myself slipping back into the boyhood tendency of spinning fish tales, of turning a few hours sitting on the shore of our local lake into the kind of primordial struggle of which legends are made.

“Sega Bass Fishing” brings it all back. But this time, I don’t have to get out of bed before sunrise.

Based on the coin-op game of the same name, “Sega Bass Fishing” can be incredibly addictive, particularly when played with Sega’s fishing controller. Unlike other virtual fishing games, “Sega Bass Fishing” actually feels like fishing.

Repeated casting and reeling with a standard Dreamcast controller gets tedious. It’s worth shelling out the $30 for the fishing controller, which looks like a cross between a fishing pole and a VCR remote control.

Players can actually cast with a flick of the wrist and then reel the lure in. Jiggling the “pole” makes the lure dance, which may scare away the big one--or make him curious. A vibration function makes the controller jerk and weave when a bass bites, adding a layer of realism.

Perhaps the coolest thing--and ultimately the thing that undermines the realism--about “Sega Bass Fishing” is the perspective. The camera follows the lure underwater, so players can see what the fish are doing at any given moment. It’s beautiful scenery, rendered smartly by Dreamcast’s 128-bit processor.

But this isn’t fishing. Part of the art of fishing is knowing--or, rather, guessing--what’s going on beneath the surface. And that’s what permits the best part about fishing--the lying. Every fish that gets away is a monster.

“Sega Bass Fishing” may get players in the mood to tell a whopper, but the underwater camera and blow-by-blow narrative undermine the ability to get away with it. Even so, the game is a load of fun. Honest.

“Donkey Kong 64”

Even as I was enjoying myself with “Donkey Kong 64” for Nintendo 64, I half-expected to see a tubby plumber jump out from behind a bush and shout, “It’s me--Mario!” Despite all the cool new features and lovely new graphics, “Donkey Kong 64” feels and plays a lot like “Super Mario 64,” the first great game on Nintendo’s flagship console.

Not that that’s much of a problem. Nintendo 64 may be out-processed by Sega Dreamcast and out-gamed by Sony PlayStation, but exclusive gems like “Donkey Kong 64” give the rig the sort of strong legs it will need to weather the coming changes in the video game market.

Donkey Kong, as older players will remember, started life as a bad guy--tossing barrels down on poor Mario. Somewhere along the way, he redeemed himself and is now a full-fledged hero. This time around, Kong has to stop a Kremling army from blowing up Kong Isle.

True, the game initially looks a lot like every other third-person, three-dimensional adventure out there. But the deeper players get into the game, the more they realize that looks can be deceiving. Players can play as any of five Kongs, each with special abilities necessary to complete various tasks.

Play is helped by lots of special items and the environments are simply beautiful. Games like “Donkey Kong 64” reveal how much juice Nintendo 64 has when the right people punch the code.

“Toy Story Action Game”

Never accuse Hollywood of missing a marketing opportunity. “Toy Story 2” had yet to hit theaters before kids were being bombarded with toys, games and CDs based on the film. Among them: “Toy Story 2 Action Game,” an action-adventure for the PC that lets kids become Buzz Lightyear as he searches for the kidnapped Woody.

Just as technology has allowed new tricks at the movies, computing advances have permitted this three-dimensional game to do things not possible when the original “Toy Story” games came out.

Those were two-dimensional side-scrollers that looked great for their time. But “Toy Story 2” incorporates actual footage from the film to create a unified story tied together by competent play and OK graphics.

“Toy Story 2” won’t win any awards for originality, but it gets the job done and delivers some amusing play. Most of Buzz’s action revolves around running, jumping and shooting, but he has some nice features such as the ability to lower his visor for better targeting.

Parents should like the game because it offers very little to offend. True, Buzz blows up other toys, but the violence is limited to that. Families could do a lot worse than picking this one up to keep the kids busy during the holidays.

“Toy Story 2 Action Game” requires a Pentium 166 with 32 mb of RAM and 60 mb of free hard disk space as well as a video card with 4 mb of memory.

Aaron Curtiss, formerly a Times editorial writer, currently serves as assistant to the senior vice president of advertising as part of a management training program. He has no financial dealings with the companies he covers. To comment on a column or to suggest games for review, send e-mail to aaron.curtiss@latimes.com.

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Essentials

Sega Bass Fishing

* Platform: Sega Dreamcast

* Publisher: Sega

* ESRB Rating: Everyone

* Price: $49.99

* Bottom Line: Fishing without lies

Donkey Kong 64

* Platform: Nintendo 64

* Publisher: Nintendo

* ESRB Rating: Everyone