When your game(s) of the year mostly consist of psychological horror and back-to-back, brutal boss fights – as I did – you'll almost certainly need something mindless to fall back on. Certainly, while I was passing my time traveling around the streets of the Silent Hill 2a fabulous game unexpectedly started making the rounds on social media: Webfishing.
Fishing nets is simple. You fish. That's it. After hours of explanation Silent Hill 2Fishing is what I would like to do.
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Yes, there is a bit more to net fishing than just fishing. There's a chat function, and ultimately, the idea is that you make friends – or hang out with your existing friends – and chat while you wait. to bite a fish. There is cosmetics, refinement, and even gambling, but not the predatory kind; Fortunately, Phishing doesn't ask you to spend a penny more than the £4.29 the game actually costs.
Sure enough, myself and a close friend got a job catching fish and quickly spent most of our profits on scratch cards. Our new profits, which were not profits at all, were quickly spent on cosmetics and better food. Better bait means bigger fish, and the fish in net fishing get really big…
And what happens when you catch that big fish? More often than not, you will find others – who are all similar Animal cross characters, anyway – cheering you on in chat. Some of the best, most innocent online interactions I've had all year in Webfishing.
A very simple premise with, for the most part, a lovely player base and community. In one random lobby I joined, hoping to fish quietly while watching YouTube, I joined a group of people fishing from a small house. It's one of the things you can do in Webfishing that I didn't know existed at the time. Another player took out a guitar and started taking requests from others, and we all continued to fish from the same small house.
Another time, me and my friend decided to spend our Saturday night getting in-game (and real!) beers while playing net fishing and catching up on each other's lives. Our server quickly went from just the two of us to a bunch of pixelated cats and dogs gathering on the pier to chat about anything and everything, get drunk on in-game wine, and of course, fish.
There were a few casualties to the wine, but overall, logging into a game to fish with your friend and then finding yourself chatting to a wide range of like-minded people while I was doing that. Phishing when I first installed it. It really surprised me, and that's what keeps me coming back. That, and fishing, of course. There is a real kick from catching a fish so big that it goes through the map. However, there is not much kick since spending all your profits on postcards, and losing most of them.
Net fishing is weird and surreal at the best of times, especially when you see your friend parkour from one side of the map to the other – meowing wildly the whole time, because that's a thing that you can do – but there is something equally beautiful about it all. Phishing is a little corner of the internet where – when hackers aren't trying to ruin the fun – you can switch off and relax for a while. Fish, gamble, parkour. Push people into the ocean. Get a drink on the pier. Angling is an underrated game and a rare respite for gamers who need a break from it all.
