When I pulled it out from the budget bin of CompUSA, the box clearly stated that Super Pro Bass Fishmaster USA was "the most realistic sport fishing game ever created." So I did what any red-blooded American man with a Hewlett Packard 166MHz powerhouse would do -- I played it, sunup 'til dawn, religiously. Every single day until the unemployment checks stopped coming. "Someday," I said, "Someday I'm going to fish for real. And I want to be ready."

So finally Marge and I pile the kids and dogs into the pickup truck and take off for what they call 'the lake,' which is a place where you go to fish. First, I had to buy all this extra hardware -- like rods and reels and tackle. None of it looked like the stuff in the game. "What kind of lure do you want?" those nimrods at the store kept asking. "I want F5," I said. They didn't know what the hell I was talking about -- those a-holes didn't know the first thank about fishin'!

So my understanding is that simply by clicking anywhere on the lake, I could begin my fishing experience. But here, they're saying you need some kind of "Boat." That's a bunch of crap, a hidden expense and they know it. I refused.

I stood on the shore, which was all round and spongy instead of jagged like the shore of the lake on my PC. And there were bugs everywhere. And it was cold. This wasn't realistic at all.

The thing that really tipped me off was when I cast out my line. I tried pushing the button on the rod, assuming that it would work just like the spacebar, but nothing happened. The line was supposed to all come back in. Also, when my lure hit the water, I'm supposed to be able to see under there so I could see the fish looking at it -- I couldn't see crap, even when I stuck my head underwater. Everything was green. Then my head was wet. It was gross.

This is nothing like the simulators -- I hope whoever wasted their money buying this lake thing saved their receipt. It's crap.