Bass Fishing 2 does away with the simple Arcade mode, and more or less throws you right into tournaments. Tournaments and your career are the primary focus of the game this time around, although you can just as easily have some fun with the Free Fishing mode. Free Fishing allows you to select and tweak all the available options and variables, and just leisurely fish the day away. Tournaments, on the other hand, feature stages and days worth of fishing contests. Definitely more than enough for most wannabe anglers.

Speaking of options, Sega Bass Fishing 2 has a ton of them. Instead of choosing from a simple, and virtually identical male or female character as in SBF1, you now have a large roster of characters (both male and female) to pick from, each with distinct abilities. Casting power, fighting ability, sight, reeling power and accuracy are a few of the statistics that may differ between characters. When choosing an area to fish in, one of the absolute largest differences in the game has to do with choosing where to cast. You can now fully trawl the area with your boat and search out the best nooks and crannies to fish at. The boat can be maneuvered pretty easily, and it even comes equipped with a realistic fish finder and map, which are both definitely a nice touch. This aspect alone gives the game much less arcade-like, as it takes a bit of work to find those big fish sometimes.

Once you find out where to look for fish, you need to cast out your line, which also can be accomplished in a variety of different ways. Once the line is cast the familiar fish fighting gameplay returns. Reeling and controlling the line is just as it was before, even though the bass (and other assorted fish) are definitely much pickier about taking the lure. The variety of fish you can actually catch this time around is much, much greater. You are not restricted to only catching bass in SBF2. There are a variety of freshwater fish to catch, and the whole "fully modeled ecology" feature makes the game, overall, a more realistic experience. While fishing through your career, variables such as the weather conditions and time-of-day change in real-time, along with the seasons and even water temperature.

Visually, everything looks great. There is a tiny bit of slowdown while casting into certain areas of the map, but the game maintains a 60fps framerate most of the times when it is important. The fish and pond life look about as good as you would expect from the Dreamcast, and they all animate extremely realistically. Additionally, realtime time-of-day effects are always a plus in my book. The ambient sound effects are varied and interesting as well, and I personally loved the soothing "Weather Channel"-like soundtrack while fishing.

If you are looking for another reason to whip out that Dreamcast fishing rod peripheral, Sega Bass Fishing 2 is it. While it is unfortunate that there is no online play or tournament feature included, the game still provides plenty of depth and fun for the whole family.