An early screenshot of the new lunar Rapala fishing tournament game features the new Bass-On-o-Meter tension/hook sensor.

LOS ANGELES, CA–Activision’s Rapala-branded fishing games product director, Vince McKort, believes that the recent discovery of water molecules on the moon opens up new worlds of possibility for his video game fishing franchise.

“In my experience,” McKort told IGNN, “where you find water, you find fish. I’m picturing dramatic settings, new angling techniques, exotic fish species and really incredible casting distances. I bet I could cast a spin-n-glo half a mile on the moon.”

When we described McKort’s concept to planetary geologist Sid Maels of Brown University and a member of the moon water discovery team, we received a predictably dry response: “We’re talking about minute molecular concentrations in some locations,” stated the academic. “And not only do fish require a great deal of water, they require a number of other conditions to support their existence, as well–such as food, the appropriate temperature range, an ecosystem, other fish–none of which you would find on the moon. In fact, even if open bodies of water could exist on the moon, they would either freeze or boil in two week cycles.”

But McKort isn’t swayed by egghead theories and nay saying. “If those guys had an ounce of sense they wouldn’t spend their entire lives hiding inside ivy towers. Did you know that professors have to publish some sort of ridiculous paper every week or the colleges lop off their enormous, over-priced heads? I’d rather go with my gut and make a game that people are going to enjoy instead of some boringly tedious, realistic, ho-hum game that’s a slave to reality and in which nothing fun every happens.”

McKort’s success with fishing games, including Rapala’s Super Bass Simulation, Rapala’s Here’s Some More Bass For Ya, Bass Blitz 2003, Wii Love Bass, and World Bass Tour Extreme Bass Frenzypalooza can’t be denied having amassed sales totaling more than 50 million copies worldwide.

“I don’t see how a realistic bass fishing game can compare to the thrill of scientific inquiry,” countered Maels.

“It’s pure fantasy,” McKort retorted. “We speed up the action, make the fish either smarter or dumber than they really are, and we take all the slimy guts out of the experience, which, frankly, suits me fine, and when you play one of my games you never get nipped by one of the little bastards. So fishing on the moon isn’t really that much of a leap.”

McKort and his team are already at work building the new game, creating new physics models to control the water animation and fish AI. He admits taking some liberties with the environment by allowing actual bodies of liquid water on the moon’s airless surface along with plants, birds, breezes and sounds.

“If you leave all that stuff out it would be like fishing on a lifeless rock,” McKort explained.

Sid Maels, however, thinks it’s a stupid idea. “What are we teaching people with this kind of idiotic premise?” he asked. “Wouldn’t it be more fun to visit the moon as it really is? Maybe you could create an exploration game in which players race to find a new basaltic outcrop or sample out-gassing from lunar rills.”

“What a megadork,” responded McKort. “I’ll stake a delicious moon bass against a salty rock any day of the week and twice on Tuesdays.” Frankly, our money is with the bass on this one.