The Alphaville Herald

I’m telling ya, that sucker was this big *holds his arms out*

by Alphaville Herald on 13/04/05 at 9:13 pm

By Koden Farber

Ah fishing, one of the many pastimes that have managed to find their way to Second Life. Neo-Realms Fishing Camp is probably the best (possibly only?) fishing spot on SL. From what I can tell, the camp is fairly active and is normally on the popular places list. What makes Neo-Realms Fishing so fun? Let’s take a look and find out.

Wanta see my heavy rod?

Fishing is all about the proper equipment, this is true for Neo-Realms as well. Neo-Realms has a very simplified method for fishing; buy a rod, buy some bait, start fishing. For some people this may be too simplistic, but I haven’t seen anyone complaining yet, and there are enough people doing this every day so that change doesn’t seem to be warranted. Getting started is very easy and shouldn’t be hard to figure out; buy the rod, buy the bait, drop the rod on the floor and put the bait script in the rod, then wear the rod and start fishing. Neo-Realms also gives you the option to have a gesture for fishing, making it so you only have to press F2 to fish instead of typing the /1cast command. To fish, all you need to do is press F2 on the lot and cross your fingers.

Be quiet, you’re scaring the fish

One of the most appealing things to fishing is what you catch. There’s nothing like showing off the prim fish you caught and making up a story of the struggle to land the beast. Neo-Realms has a large variety of fish to catch, including different species and different size classifications: Some fish even have surprises inside them. When catching the fish, you earn experience and redeemable points to your rod. The redeemable points are used to buy little prizes, ranging from fishing equipment to little figurines to clothing items.

Review

Learning curve: 5-10 minutes.

Gameplay: 6/10

It’s easy to play, almost too easy. All you need to do is load the rod with bait, turn on the gesture, and press F2 to cast.

Graphics and Sound: 7/10

Dude, it’s prim fish. That took major effort to do and a lot of them are pretty cool looking. Haven’t noticed any sound past the sound of people typing talking to each other and them making their own sounds. The place has a definite fisher’s spot feel to it and I like the statues/creatures that are around the place. Check out underwater, major cool.

Keep Factor: Depends, but I’d give it an 8/10

If you’re kind of anti social you might not enjoy fishing here, one of the major pluses to this besides the fishing itself is all the people you can talk to while fishing. Some people are addicted to catching fish, while others aren’t. So this is definitely one of those things where it is ranged depending on your personality. Me, I like fishing here. The tournaments they hold are pretty fun too. I like the event rod only/no bate tournaments; they level the playfield a bit. I also like catching the fish and showing them off to friends.

Overall 8/10

Some people might think I’m being too generous with this grade, but looking at it Neo-Realms has found a winning formula to fishing. Make it easy, make it to where you gotta work it to get what you want, make it look decent, and make it very unaffected by lag. The rods are decently priced, but personally I recommend a heavy rod if you ever want to catch something good. I like the heavy rod/epic bate combination which will run you 200L. If you have a little money to kill and time to waste trying something new, I recommend this.