Ridiculous Fishing

This neo-retro trend is really beginning to impress me. What used to be the necessity is now a diversely refined art form that generates both nostalgia and sharp, original visuals that prove to be a lot more memorable than many of their graphics-heavy contemporaries.

What's even more memorable than Ridiculous Fishing's look is its buzzing, 8-bit sounds--those kind of melodies that are beautifully simple and always tickle you, and could never belong more perfectly anywhere else. Ridiculous Fishing reminds me of a time when I held a Game Boy Color instead of an iPhone.

The premise of the game is appropriately simple: you're a hillbilly with a boat. You spend your time dropping lines and avoiding fish (by tilting the device) to make it as far down into the waters as you can; when you've either maxed out your line or run into a fish, the line pulls up and you're tasked with exactly the opposite: catch all the fish! When the line makes it all the way up to the surface with (hopefully) a heaving mass of scales and fins, the fish fly into the air and your final job is to shoot (tap) them all out of the sky to earn your daily buck. Then, with a satisfied, toothless grin, you can take your earnings to the store and pick out some nifty upgrades, like longer lines, better (more ridiculous) guns, and even some fancy accessories for your misunderstood, hillbilly soul. [As a pretty dedicated vegan, I'm not sure how I managed to get past all the brutalization. But just don't actually do this to fish. They're people, too.]

The more fish you discover, the farther you can go, sweeping the seas from your home waters. The game can be tricky, but because you're always earning at least a little something every time you fish, you're given a continuous sense of progress (and a distinct lack of "stuck feeling"), always something more to unlock that's only a few dropped lines away. Ridiculous Fishing updates the old, rather than reviving it in all its punishing glory. Which in this case, is a very good thing.

I will confess that the gameplay isn't the most exciting or progressive I've ever experienced. Though it is fun. But what's sure is that Ridiculous Fishing is worth playing purely on account of its shameless sense of humor: you're not only a fishing hillbilly, you're a fishing hillbilly with a smartphone that records captured fish, provides a trusty map of the sea, and, of course, gives you all the latest tweets from your ridiculous, seafaring friends.