Kotaku
In all of the Metal Gear Solid 4 excitement yesterday, we missed out on what could be the most important game of the year. The Discovery Channel presents Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm, a game for the Xbox 360 and PC that promises to bring the perilous world of the Bering Sea crab boat captain to your living room. Developed by Liquid Dragon Studios, DCAS is the brainchild of brothers Sig, Edgar, and Norman Hansen, who have been a big part of the Discovery Channel's hit show. The game touts 34,000 miles of the Bearing Sea coast recreated from the US Geological Survey, weather patterns based on authentic data, and some really big f***ing waves.
With waves over 40 feet high, "Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm" features the best wave effects in a video game to date. In the words of Captain Sig Hansen, "It may not be life or death, but chills went up my spine the first time I saw the Northwestern sink in the game."
I make fun, but the game really does sound pretty nifty. There's a career mode where your goal is to make it back to one of the four faithfully recreated harbors season after season with the biggest catch, using the money you earn to upgrade your crew and equipment, a bunch of mini-games, and - for the first time in a video game - United States Coast Guard search and rescue missions, and if any branch of the military needs some video game glorifying it's the Coast Guard. It's even got Xbox Live multiplayer, though I cannot imagine how that works.
The game also caters to fans of the show with authentic ships, captains, and crew members, 4,500 lines of recorded dialog, and 100 exclusive videos featuring the crew of real life crabbing boats.
I am sort of a reluctant fan of the show, as my television got stuck on the Discovery Channel last year and the damn thing was on five or six times a day, with marathons thrown in now and then for good measure. It was actually quite enthralling to watch these crazy, crazy men risking their lives for what amounts to giant water spiders. If the game manages to be half as enthralling as the show I might actually find myself picking up my first Discovery Channel game ever come this April.
"Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm" for Xbox 360 and PCLife and Death on the Bering Sea
SEATTLE, WA—(Marketwire - February 26, 2008) - Battle 40-foot waves, storms, ice and a nearly 100-percent crewmember injury rate in the dangerous hunt for undersea riches on the Bering Sea with the new video game "Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm," to be launched on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PC in April 2008. The game was inspired by Sig, Edgar and Norman Hansen — three brothers who have made their living crab fishing on the Bering Sea aboard their family's fishing vessel, the Northwestern. The Hansen brothers started game development with Liquid Dragon Studios in October 2005.
The Hansens and the Northwestern are featured on Discovery Channel's highest rated and Emmy®-nominated series — "Deadliest Catch." The series that captivated nearly three million viewers each week returns for a fourth season this April.
Whether the gamer is a die-hard fan or someone who has never seen the Discovery Channel series, "Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm" is an immersive and challenging experience, putting them at the helm of one the world's most dangerous jobs — that of a crab boat captain in the icy Bering Sea.
"Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm" lets gamers captain their own boat in the frenzied search for an undersea jackpot. Gamers select one of five real crab boats, including the Northwestern, Cornelia Marie and Sea Star — all featured on the series, or create and customize their own boat. Gamers then recruit and lead their own crew from a roster of twenty real crab fishermen. Selecting the wrong boat or recruiting the wrong crew member can mean the difference between landing a Bering Sea jackpot or disaster. Lead your fatigued, hungry and hardworking crew in the strategic search for King Crab and Opilio Crab, while battling to secure your catch and livelihood before other captains and crews get to the crab first.
Authenticity and realism were critical to the Hansen brothers. They invited key development team members to Dutch Harbor, Alaska to personally experience life on the Northwestern. The game's realism is enhanced with four real Bering Sea harbors and 34,000 miles of real Bering Sea coastline created from the United States Geological Survey. In addition, "Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm" is the first video game to feature United States Coast Guard vessels and helicopters.
With waves over 40 feet high, "Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm" features the best wave effects in a video game to date. In the words of Captain Sig Hansen, "It may not be life or death, but chills went up my spine the first time I saw the Northwestern sink in the game."
Weather and fishing conditions are based on authentic weather and storm data and get progressively worse each season, increasing the challenge. The ultimate goal is to return safely each season, upgrade your boat and crew, and attempt to break Captain Sig Hansen and the Northwestern crew's actual lifetime catch of twenty million pounds.
"Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm" includes the following features and content:
— Career Mode (Realistic and challenging simulation for gamers and "Deadliest Catch" fans)
— Missions (Gamers experience the hard core Bering Sea life, including participation in United States Coast Guard search and rescue missions and ice flow navigation)
— Arcade Mini-Games (Allows casual gamers to enjoy fun challenges, including crab boat races and skiff races)
— Five Authentic Crab Boats (including Northwestern and Cornelia Marie)
— Twenty Real Fishermen (including Edgar and Norman Hansen, Josh and Jake Harris)
— Six Authentic Captains (including Captains Sig Hansen, Phil Harris and Larry Hendricks)
— 4,500 lines of recorded character dialogue
— United States Coast Guard Search and Rescues (First time in a video game)
— Captain the 370ft. USCG Cutter Mellon
— Throw-the-Hook Mini-Game
— Skiff Racing Mini-Game
— 34,000 Miles Actual Coastline
— Four Real Bering Sea Harbors (Akutan, Dutch Harbor, King Cove and St. Paul)
— Interactive Virtual Tour Northwestern Crab Boat
— 100 Exclusive Crew Videos
— Xbox Live multiplayer
Captain Sig Hansen personally announces the game he inspired with a video on Discovery.com at www.discovery.com/deadliestcatch. Every Tuesday until "Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm" launches, a new video featuring captains or crewmembers from the "Deadliest Catch" series discussing the game will be released at www.discovery.com/deadliestcatch.
"Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm" is being developed by Liquid Dragon Studios (www.liquiddragon.com). The exclusive crew videos were filmed on location on the Bering Sea by Hi-Five Films (www.hifivefilms.com). The game is published by Greenwave, a recently established video game publisher based in Seattle. The game will be available April 2008 for the Xbox® 360 video game system from Microsoft and for PC. The game is not yet rated. For more information about "Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm," visit www.alaskanstorm.com or www.greenwavegames.com.
Comments
Unless it has Giant Enemy Crabs it can't bring anything to the table that isn't inferior to the ps3.
I bet the wind graphics will be state of the art
Whew! 5 authentic crab boats!.
i mean, if Camelia Marie wasnt in the game then no buy for me.
Can I get by without having played the first 2 seasons, or will I need to go back and play through them? Please don't post plot spoilers!!
Seriously? There's actually a market for this type of game? I suppose it's not a huge departure from Harvest Moon type games, but it just seems so... niche.
Discovery Channel. Hmmm. All their software sucks the big one, so...it's probably safe to say, if you hook this one, it's better to throw it back overboard.
@seafisch: Same market as lost and CSI games - which probably means no one posting here...
@seafisch: For some the allure of the sea is great.
@Dakobah: Cornelia Marie...
I knew a Cornelia Marie in high school. What a slut. So I suppose it's fitting that there's a crab boat named after her.
If the price is right and the RPG like ship upgrading is fun I might pick it up.
Skiff Racing Mini-Game!!! It has mini-game.
A game with realistic weather patterns (think what NCAA did with TWC) is made for something like this. That's where I see the online part coming in.
It was pretty clear that after yesterday's Sony madness, that the Xbox had to respond -- and now they have. This is huge, though a big part of me thinks it would play better on the Wii.
Best wave graphics....UNTIL The Perfect Storm finally reaches the end of it's long harrowed development cycle. I hear they were finally able to convince Wahlberg to do the VO work.
"could be the most important game of the year"
Careful with that, Mike - you could end up quoted on the box art...
@Everard: I say that quote should be used for every horrible game that comes across the Kotaku desk. It'll be an inside joke seeing that quote on the box art.
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Can't stop! I'm running to my local store to put £5 on this bad boy!
i'll be buying it. i love the show and work at Wegmans in the seafood department. i'm assuming this game will be ~$39.99. any more than that, and i'll wait until it hits that price point. i don't expect anything amazing to come of this, but being a fan of the show, i'll support it.
The crab season ran through october/november this year and we got in fresh crab legs and a few whole crab thoughout. i'll never be satisfied with frozen crab legs again.
@Everard: " 3 out of 5 kotaku members agree!"
Mike Rowe ftw.
It's really cool that these guys have a game made of them. They're not particularily famous, they're not athletes. They just do a crazy dangerous job for a whole lot of money.
So long as the graphics are decent, I don't see why this wouldn't sell just as well as any fishing or hunting game out there. Which actually isn't saying much...but do you have a game based on your job?
Haha, I hope there will be a "survival" mode where all of the weather settings are turned up to the maximum and you have to stay alive for as long as possible for a better score. How awesome would that be?
Two words..
CRAB BATTLE!
@Dauragon C. Mikado:
survival of the fittest!
My crabs are better than your crabs!
"-- Six Authentic Captains (including Captains Sig Hansen, Phil Harris and Larry Hendricks)"
Larry Hendricks!? Oh man, count me in! He's my idol!
Larry Hendricks for Brawl 2 confirmed!
W00T at Mike Rowe. He's such a great host, I mean, have you SEEN "Dirty Jobs"?
Most realistic weather in a game huh? couple that with unreal and you got yourself the perfect engine for "Twister: The Movie: The Game"
@topbravo222: Now with support for pokemon diamond and pearl for DS.
@Bluecell: I'm a college student who reads forums/kotaku all day occasionally playing games when I go home. You tell me if there is a game like that.
This has to be an early April Fools joke.
What almost disturbs me is how popular Sig and co are with my GF and her female friends, I wonder if maybe Wii/DS isn't a more appropriate platform for this game ;)
Why not? There's enough of those damn American Chopper video games.
The funny thing is that there are actually a lot of elements in the show that would make for good games.
There's all kinds of strategic play in how and where to set their lines of crab traps, how long to let them sit, when to change over and pick them up.
There's the piloting/catching element which has to deal with floating ice, cross currents and lining up for grabbing the buoys, all while watching fuel consumption.
Then there's the whole RPG human drama of keeping the crew working. On the show there seems to be some (admittedly sensationalized a bit by the tv guys) drama in terms of keeping the ship's crew running. They do after all work 16-20 hour shifts on a listing deck in subzero weather while being occasionally drenched by waves. It seems you could do either a series of scripted people management thing where you try to reconcile people (which I think it cheesy) or a stat based punish and reward game where you are monitoring people's fatigue and anger against their stamina and constitution (or whatever) and skill level. Giving breaks to keep people working while trying not to have the rest of the crew resent them for working less. Add on a crew member levelling system between missions and I think that aspect could be pretty cool.
When you take all this stuff and add in the fact that the best parts of the show usually stem from their coping with bad weather or mechanical malfunctions I think you could probably do two or three different games based on different aspects of the show. That said, I think that the level of investment necessary to build a game that really captured that would be much higher than the potential sales of such a title. I'm guessing that it will turn out to be a bit of a kludgy mess with the occasional glimmer showing through of the great game it could have been.
@topbravo222: But I don't have crabs... Well at least I think I don't. *looks down* Nope still clean.
DAMN! that was on Double-Jeopardy last night!
'Who are Sig Hansen, Phil Harris and Larry Hendricks?'
now i know that they are Authentic Captains. YAY! Now i can sleep better. Thanks Kotaku, Microsoft, Discovery Channel and Greenwave.
When's the Parking Wars game coming out? God damn PPA, I'd love to play a game as those assholes and just walk them out into the middle of traffic over and over and over.
Laugh it up Sony fanboys...
Sounds interesting. I would normally say: "The world needs more games like this", but I'll wait to see if it turns out to be any good first.
@Gray665: Sorry but GOTY will be Find a Wii. You will need to dodge soccermoms and elderly people through dept stores in a SSBB style melee. Stake out a gamestop for the delivery guys to appear. As wells as stalking a UPS trucks through your neighborhood and try to avoid hide bundle pack with shoveleware titles.
@Bluecell: In a way, yes - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (I'm not a criminal lawyer though)
If it's one of the $39.99 games like the rest of the Discovery arsenal I think I'll buy it. Don't ask me why...I think it's just because I like the show and I want to take the ships through some big waves.
Show is awesome... game will probably suck
"watching fuel consumption" sounds like fun! im a huge fan of the show but i dont think ill get this game. i think fishing is dull, the show is good because they edit all the boring tedious stuff out.
360 "Catches The Deadliest Catch"
U mean RROD? DU-DUM DISSSHHHHHHHH!!! :D i kid.
@Kilbe: if it is, sure the early bird is sitting by a tree reading the morning paper waiting for worms to show up.
@tljent:
yah if you can ramp the waves and see how high you can get your boat to fly i will so get it!
Headcrabs plz.
@seafisch: Best comment of the day and even funnier because of your pseudonym .
When I read the title of this article, I thought I would have a fun time making fun of it. After reading the description, I kind of want to play it.
As a 10-year member of the US Coast Guard and someone who has been experienced weather of the sort they are proclaiming, as well as a Coast Guard Search and Rescue controller... this game sounds amazing. I just hope it's not TOO realistic.