Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ (GBC) Review (no fat)

by Saffire Platform: Gameboy Genre: Sports	ESRB Rating: Everyone Release: 1999-11-30	Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ (GBC) Features: Engage in fishing and hunting activities 10 levels Several mini-games Hunt a variety of animals
	Egamer's Rating: 6 / 10. Reviewed on: 2006-02-04

Game Description

Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ lets you live through the life of Billy Bob, a sad redneck. The girl Billy loves will acknowledge his pitiful existence only if he complies to her wishes all the time. His sweetheart’s latest antics include requesting Billy to bring her animals. Billy takes it upon himself to go fishing and hunting, hoping that this will suffice to please her and at last make her love him back. Unfortunately, he’s not experienced in either activity, and doesn’t even hold a valid hunting license.

Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ Gameplay

Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’s premise is simple and involves first beating mini-games before you can enjoy the fishing and hunting parts. The mini-games actually constitute the most important features since they allow you to obtain bait and ammunition. Once you’ve successfully managed to win a mini-game, you can then control Billy Bob in one of the title’s various fishing and hunting locales. There are 10 levels to complete, but unfortunately, they are all extremely short, and the challenge remains non-existent from beginning to end.

There’s at least some diversity to the mini-games, and you will always have to tackle them in a preset order. In order to obtain your fishing license you need to collect cans in one of the eight mini-games. Similarly, you need to obtain bullets before you enter the hunting stages. Indeed, the hunting and fishing aspects have four mini-games each, and completing all of them is essential.

Once you’ve completed a certain mini-quest, you can eventually tackle the core of the game, which obviously consists in hunting and fishing. Things are, however, again kept to a frustrating simplicity. Fishing merely involves rowing your boat into any location in one of the game’s several lakes and staying there until a fish magically eats your bait. It’s completely random, and there’s absolutely nothing else you need to do in these stages, which makes the fishing aspect pretty pointless.

Thankfully, things are slightly better when it’s time to hunt. There are several animals you can aim, and these range from hopping rabbits to the mandatory deer, without forgetting the threatening bears. To bring them back, you first need to find the animals’ hideouts, as they won’t just sit there and casually wait for you. You consequently wander about until you spot some paw prints. Once you think you’ve found their location, the game changes to the hunting stage where your task is to shoot the animal to which the footsteps belong. Regardless of the prey you have set your eyes on, the mechanism remains the same. Shooting an incorrect animal will cost you a life, and you will have to restart the whole process.

In addition to its rather unique atmosphere and concepts, Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ also tries to be humoristic by capitalizing on the protagonist’s personality. Things don’t work out well though, and the game’s overall cheesiness gets rapidly irritating. Making fun of rednecks isn’t particularly original either, and the jokes fail to be entertaining. The game also lacks replay value, which isn’t surprising given its simplicity and blandness, and enjoys a short lifespan that does not exceed a couple of hours.

Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ Visuals

Unfortunately, while Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ boasts an impressive color palette, it is let down by its very poor design. The protagonist appears to be hand-drawn, and the same can be said about the lackluster backgrounds. The textures are rather ugly too while the dodgy animation can get annoying, especially during the hunting parts.

Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ Sound

The music fails to fit the game and rapidly gets monotonous. While it would have been better to have no music and to concentrate on ambient noises instead, the game holds a couple of tracks that are extremely repetitive. The sound effects are equally of a very poor quality, but are thankfully sparse.

Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ Overall

There’s not much about Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ other than its handful of mini-games. Even then, the poor visuals, combined with the lack of replay value, make this an easly forgettable title.

Billy Bob’s Huntin’ and Fishin’ Cost

The game currently retails for $7.04.