Of course, it isn’t just in angling that a ‘hook’ is needed; games do too and Get Bass has a superb one: you get to use the dedicated fishing controller to reel in your catch. This unassuming lump of plastic has everything a real rod has, bar the pole and line, plus the addition of face buttons and a mini stick for navigating menus. It can also be used for the one function the controller fails to replicate: side-to-side motion. Other than that, the rod has it covered. A motion detector senses the casting motion and the tensing or slacking of the line by movement on the vertical axis. This combines with the rumble function to do a pretty darn good approximation of real fishing when trying to land a catch.

Once a fish is snared onto your lure, it will - naturally - fight to escape. A bar to the right of the screen shows the tension in the line, accompanied by a rapid blipping sound that increases in speed if things are getting too – ahem – tense. If the gauge is going into the red, the line is about to snap, and you have to adjust line tension accordingly. This is done by a combination of paying-out more line, lowering the rod and only reeling back in when the tension decreases. This aspect is well worked, but realism is harmed both the lack of force feedback in the reeling mechanism and the need for the stick to make left-right adjustments to the line. A pity, but a rod with these features would undoubtedly cost as much, if not more than, the real thing.

The Bass have very basic patterns of movement, but are well modelled and fairly convincing. When they spot your lure, interest will pique and they will slowly edge towards your fake plastic fish. Once they bite, your boat-bound avatar will excitedly scream ‘Fish!!!’ – surely the most redundant command in the history of videogames. Snared, they behave differently each time – always trying to escape, but attempting different speeds and directions in a desperate struggle to avoid going into the pot. Add to this the fact that varying weights of Bass affect the tension of the line and the methods you will need to reel them in, and you know each conflict with aquatic nemeses will be tough and exciting.

In the Arcade mode, only three areas - plus two bonus areas – are available to the angler. As the time limit is so restrictive, you’ll find yourself cruising through (with continues) in about fifteen minutes. Disciplining yourself not to continue once the harsh time limit is up is a tough call, as the game is extremely random – there is no way to tell if the area you cast into contains a good stock of be-gilled trophies-in-waiting, and this means you often have to waste vital seconds scrabbling your line back towards the rod so you can re-cast (You would think that casting towards the silhouettes darting under the surface would be a good choice, but no: the shadows you see whilst picking a spot have no relation to where the Bass actually appear when the lure plops underwater). This one island of realism in Get Bass’s ocean of unreality conflicts badly with the harsh time limit, a measure blatantly added to the arcade version to sucker people into feeding the machine more 10Ps.

Hoorah, then, for the ‘Consumer’ mode – a tournament taking place in each area over different time periods during the day. The time limit is as strict as before, but the random casting element is negated by the fact that scores (again, judged by weight of catch) are carried-over. Do badly in one round, and you can compensate by landing a spectacularly heavy water-breather in the next. This competition, needless to say, is tons ‘o’ fun and extends the life of the game tenfold. Winning the competition is really difficult, and landing a huge one will have you flying up the rankings with a big smile on your face.

Graphically, Get Bass has dated, but the bold primary colours and simplistic interface are still pleasing to the eye. Sadly, the lack of peripheral vision when viewing your line underwater means that tactics are a little limited, plus there is often some minor slowdown. Although neither of these drawbacks damages the gameplay irrevocably, they are enough to take some of the sheen off the dorsal. Audio is great – loud, brash snatches of Rock when you hook a Bass, excited cries from the commentator, convincing splashing and bubbling noises. An added stroke of genius is the computerised voice that asks you to “Select a casting point” and “Select a lure”: how they managed to talk Stephen Hawking into laying down his vocals for the game, we’ll never know.

Get Bass is worth seeking out as a fun curio, and works well as one of those rare single player games that are almost as fun to watch as they are to play. Astound your friends with your dazzling ineptitude and angry shouts at digital fish. Buy the sequel – Sega Marine Fishing – to get further use from your rod, too. It’s a lively and quirky title that deserves to be stuffed and mounted in any DC collector’s trophy room.