ARTelevision

Games that simulate the look and feel of hunting for various types of wild game in the natural landscape – that’s the topic. The following describes my experience with what I’ve been doing in my “free” time lately:

“Deer Hunting and its Double”

I picked up Cabela’s Deer Hunter 2005 for several reasons besides the obvious ones to explore a simulation “game.” I do need to stay up with current stuff and I just haven’t been able to get very involved with what’s out there in the market for interactive “entertainment.” But the idea of dealing with hunting scenarios piqued my interest and while I was in Xmas-buy mode, I picked up a copy of this for myself.

It’s an excellent simulation. From the absolutely real-time execution of things like walking through the woods and the audio-visual vagaries of wind and weather throughout the landscape to the dead-on movements and innate intelligence of the fauna - including many deer species - it soon becomes a very intense and all-encompassing experience.

The AI built into the behavior of the deer is impeccable. Prey is smart and sensitive. Tracking it down requires the same sort of tactics one employs in the wild. You need to pay attention to wind direction and your own visibility and projection of self – quiet stealth is necessary and things like stamina and even nutrition and hydration contribute to successful engagements. I’m all set for something to do in-between real-world seasons, before and after target practice, and tending to maintenance of firearms and equipment.

Here’s a review from pc.ing.com
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Deer Hunter: The 2005 Season
Grab yourself a license, a gun rack, and head to the country... it's time to bag us some antlers.

October 28, 2004 - Hunting games seem to be getting better and better. There's something to be said for a game that, while simple in premise, can still deliver strong...

It's pretty obvious what the point of any given deer hunting game is, so of course quality is almost wholly based on how well the premise is given. Deer Hunter: The 2005 Season gets it right immediately. You're treated to upbeat country music to get you in a sufficiently redneck mood. Once the main menu loads, you'll get a very clean, very effective presentation of buttons to go into your hunters list, trophy room, options, and so forth.

DH2005 attempts to draw the player in by offering customization not seen in most hunting games... To get started for your hunting career, you need to make a virtual hunter to represent yourself. You can choose from a small range of models and skins for your avatar, male and female alike...

After that, you'll get to assign 15 skill points into various categories, much like you would in an RPG. Add points to the Weapons category to reduce weapon shake, for example, or to the Calling category to increase the accuracy of your calls. More points are gained from various methods, such as bagging a world record buck of every species, playing a lot of game-hours, and so on. You can effectively customize your avatar to suit your style, and you can easily feel the effects of good or bad combinations. (In fact, it's not uncommon to have to make a couple hunters as you get used to how all the skills and your personal style affect gameplay.)

Once your hunter is selected, you can head into the locations list. The game ships with six locations (plus a target range), but you can download a free map editor from the official website. Each location aside from the target range has one species of deer, and there are five species in all. While that doesn't sound like much, all the bucks also have a myriad of rack configurations, so you'll probably not see the same buck twice.

After selecting your hunting ground, you get to choose your weapons, and that's where DH2005 really shines. There are 17 weapons that ship with the game, from the old-school like recurve bows to hi-tech gadgets like a bolt rifle with a thermal scope. Beyond the official weapons, you can create your own. You can't make something from absolute scratch (no rocket launchers or miniguns or anything), but you can use any type of gun as a template. You can then skin it how you wish, editing PNG files that install with the game. Touch it up with your choices of scopes, ammunition, and calibration of distance, and before you know it you've got something like my Ghost Rifle: a 5-round auto-loading rifle with a thermal scope with ammo calibrated to 300 meters. (I know: positively unfair.) Customization is a breeze, and extremely fun in its own right. There's really a sense of accomplishment to creating your own weapon and bagging your first buck with it.

You can carry two weapons on your hunt (both with unlimited ammo, although you have to reload manually), plus several other items. Attractants such as scent sprays and calls are available, along with a map or GPS so you don't get lost. You can also take along a horse or ATV to get around faster, and even a hunting blind or tree stand to keep you even more invisible. The vast number of items expands the possible strategies to use; your success is based on how well you can use them, as it should be. It's very well done overall.

You'll then start your hunt. You'll have a bag limit, but you can be out there as long as you want until you reach it. If night falls, you can camp out and start again in the morning. In-game, the controls are very smooth. They feel like a standard FPS, right down to the standard WASD system. Heck, if you remap the reload key to Z, you'll feel like you're playing Rainbow Six 3.

The silky smoothness of the controls help, because hunting is not necessarily easy. Sure, if you have my patented Ghost Rifle, you probably won't need much help. But if you plan on using bows or short-range firearms, especially on the hardest difficulty level, you'll have to spend most of your energy staying downwind of your prey and as out of sight as possible.

In fact, probably the single-most important aspect of a hunting game is the preys' AI. DH2005 does well here, giving the deer intelligent and realistic behavior and senses. They can smell you if you're upwind, and they can see you if you're not crouched or are otherwise hidden. They have their patterns though, such as coming more out into the open if it's sunny, or heading to water in the evening. The deer feel real, and if you've never hunted before, you'll have to really get a feel for how they behave before you can expect to bag the biggest ones.


After shooting a deer, you'll have to head over to it to claim it manually, which is one aspect I appreciate. (In real life, deer certainly don't magically teleport to you after you cap 'em.) The deer will be on display in your trophy room, along with a large scorecard that shows the weapon used, the antler sizes, and so on; probably more detail than you'll care about, but more detail doesn't hurt.

You can even take your hunts online. It's no problem finding potential opponents, and you can have up to 16 hunters at one time. The host can permit or forbid custom weapons or maps, to really give challenges to players. Several clans (of sorts) have already sprung up, offering specific rules or maps.

In the matches I had, there was zero lag at all except for a second when a new hunter joined, and I was on a fairly weak computer. If you have more of a gaming machine and broadband, you'll probably never experience lag unless you have nearly the limit of hunters on a slow server. Even with seven hunters on one map, there were plenty of bucks to go around, so you won't have to worry about being left behind.

Anything you bag online is added to your hunter's profile, so there's no advantage or disadvantage of playing online, provided you find a good server to play on. If you're more into the solo experience, stay offline and track those bucks on your own. If you'd rather have some human companionship, you can still earn all rewards and trophies online. The whole game is smooth and integrated, and you can seamlessly transition between single- and multi-player. Another extremely well done aspect.

DH2005 isn't perfect, but what budget game is? The textures for everything aside from the deer are not exactly special, and there's no music aside from the opening theme. Sound is fairly boring, but I suppose it accurately mirrors what you'd here if you were out in the middle of country where there's nothing within five miles.

The only major gripe has to be a lack of anything resembling a tutorial. Not everyone who plays will know everything about hunting, after all. While the various items and lures are described as to what they do, nowhere can you see how to use them. A tutorial, even a text-only one, would have been extremely useful to help rookies figure out how to track their prey and set effective traps. Still, DH2005 has a fairly good learning curve, so it may simply take a few practice sessions to get your style and strategy set.

Closing Comments
Deer Hunter: The 2005 Season is about as good a hunting game as you'll get for the more hardcore hunting fans. Cabela's games have more game to hunt, larger maps, and more vehicles, but are too easy to play in terms of getting larger trophies. Cabela's therefore is more suited to you if you're an extremely casual gamer, or if you're more into instant action. Atari's entry is more streamlined, more simple, and more realistic (plus has no easy ways to find deer, which forces you to track or trap intelligently). Like all hunting games, this one is only 20 dollars…

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Do you know this game? Any other hunting gamers out here?

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Lasereth

I was about to say, "I wonder if he's played the Cabela's game." Then I read further. Hunting and fishing games used to be more popular in the 90's. I think there's a Big Game Hunter game for the first Playstation but I don't think it received very well reviews.

-Lasereth

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TheWalkinDude

How I wish they released the Deer Hunter games in the UK....

omega2K4

Try importing one or buying a copy from a online retailer.

I used to like hunting games a few years back, but since then they have dropped in quality. I may check out Deer Hunter 05 after reading this thread.

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japhyryder

My neighbor and I play Cabela's 2005 Deer Hunter and it is pretty darn fun, especially if you are just wanting a casual game, my only grip is you can only carry so many items (5), it is not based on weight. Scope, A call, scent cover, blind or stand, medical or food, you would still need a map, and tent and other items but you can't carry them, quite weird. But I played it on Xbox maybe it is different on the PC

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ARTelevision

Not real different as far as you describe. I tend to go without a map by walking around for a few rounds and learning the area first - or just noting the direction(s) of my travel. Gear is sort of on a "most crucial to success" basis, yeah.

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Chupes

Lol, I had Deer Hunter 3D on pc back like.. 8 years ago. So funny finding the deer crap on a map and being happy cause it meant one was near

FngKestrel

Wow, this is painful. My company put out Deer Hunter on the cell phone. I'm more intimately familiar with the cell phone art than I care to be.

Wingless

If I remember right, theres Cabela's Deer Hunt, and a sequel (I think?) to it called Cabela's Big Game Hunt. Then there's also Raperla's (?) fish simulation game; all afore mentioned on the PS2.

Haha, anyone remember those silly fishing rod controllers?

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Dostoevsky

I got Cabela's 'Dangerous Hunts' 2 years ago for Christmas. While I have to admit that it's very entertaining, there is one thing about it that frustrated me to the point where I quit playing. When you load a map, there is an extremely finite number of prey on it. For example, if the goal of a hunt is to bag 3 mule deer, then there are only 3 mule deer on that damn map. If a coyote gets to one of your mulies first, you have to start the hunt all over. It just got frustrating, then boring. I would have liked this game a lot if there would have been some kind of random prey generator that would bring prey in and off of the map from the borders, but oh well. I will say this, they don't call it Dangerous Hunts for no reason, there were quite a few species of predators that would come right at you and kill your character if you weren't able to shoot or stab them to death first. It certainly blurred the line between hunting and being prey yourself.

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