Bass Masters Classic

Bass Masters Classic brought sport fishing to the Game Boy Color handheld in 1999. Development was handled by Winning Entertainment Group and the release was published by THQ, a company that was churning out licensed titles for Nintendo's handheld at an impressive rate around the turn of the millennium.

Bass fishing, which gives the game its name, was a genuine television phenomenon in 1990s America, complete with its own tournaments and celebrities. Game adaptations of this subculture worked surprisingly well: fishing is by nature a game of patience and timing, which is exactly what modest hardware can handle.

Viewed from above, the player scans the water for promising spots, chooses lures and then fights the hooked fish on the line. That moment of striking and landing the catch is the heart of every fishing game – the tension between letting the line run and reeling it in can be conjured even on the four shades of a Game Boy screen.

Handheld fishing games had one undeniable advantage: fishing is a pastime for idle stretches of time, and the Game Boy was built precisely for those. This single-player title could serve as a pocket pond for journeys when the real rod stayed at home.

Fishing games filled a role on handhelds that big titles could not: they were gap-filler games where interruption did no harm. You can land a fish between two bus stops. That logic of short sessions is why the genre held on so well on portable machines throughout the 1990s.

This game's OldGame.cz entry shows its year, both companies involved and screenshots from the small display.