Cabela's Big Game Hunter: 2004 Season

As another year passes, it is time once again for the new releases of hunting titles. Activison Value has brought us a fun and inexpensive hunting game to the PC. BGH04 gives us the opportunity to hunt 24 big game animals found throughout North America from the comforts of home. Dall Sheep, Wild boar, Mountain Lions, Bears, Mule and White tail deer, and the list goes on. You have a ton of gear at your disposal including 15 different guns, and 3 bows. Calls, scents, shelters, stands, etc. give the hunter a true sense of what he or she will need in the many locations to fill their tags. There are plenty of environments and a variety of terrains that you will be hunting that is found throughout North America. From the wide-open plains of Montana, to the thick mountainous forests of British Columbia, to the deserts of Arizona, and a few more in between, the maps are nicely detailed and weather environments play an important role. You also have the ability to choose the season to hunt as well.

You can choose the type of game to play. A quick hunt lets you choose any animal at any location that you have previously unlocked in career hunt mode, with no impact on resources. You can practice firearm and item usage, learn more about a region and apply this in a complete hunt. Career hunt you play a complete hunt, unlocking locations one by one, respecting all hunting regulations and carefully managing your resources. This might sound just dandy to some, but me personally got a bit hot under the collar.

Ok I go out and spend some hard-earned cash to get pumped up for the upcoming hunting season. Figure I will practice on some white tail deer hunting. I really don't care about the location so much, but I do care about the game I'm hunting. I've just installed the game to find when I go to create my character there is not even my age group available in a male body. Example I can choose a teenager or someone in there mid 40's or 60's but NO mid 30's. Sure, I can pick a female in her mid 30's but my name is not Biffolina. Ok so I pick the female body just for giggles because I AM 30 something. I go to pick my white tail deer as the game to pursue, just to find out I have to unlock it first. Same goes for the location. Ok now I'm getting frustrated, I figure I'll play along and play the career mode on easy just to get through. I did say easy right? Well if that is easy, I won't even try hard. Yes you at least get to see where the trophy game is at by a glowing red dot. Other than that it is tough as hell. The animals have a super sense of knowing that you are within like 200 yards and take off running. I have tried to sneak up on an opposite mountain side with the wind in my face and still no luck. I was only successful by blasting by on a four wheeler, jumping off and firing frantically. Yes I filled some tags of animals I did not want to bother hunting, but this is by no means the way any ethical hunter or myself would hunt. After many hours of gameplay I was able to get a few trophies under my belt by hoofing it all over creation and back. This of course took a lot of time but did at least feel more realistic.

Another problem that I had with the game is the money aspect. Ok I can deal with having a limited amount of funds available to purchase items with. I'm all for being fined for breaking hunting regulations. My beef is that you get a dollar bonus for harvesting a trophy animal. We are talking hundreds here. To me this conveys killing for money. I do not like it one bit. Sure in the real world if you kill a record class animal, you may find people wanting you to endorse their products, but this is not what hunting is about, nor should we convey this to people or youngsters that are being introduced to the sport. The expert tips were a nice way to get an idea on how the game reacts and ways to hunt them. This is a great feature especially for game you are not familiar with. Which in my case was most of the game.

With that being said, the graphics are quite astounding. When a storm blows in the clouds just look plain awesome and realistic. The trees, bushes and grass all move in the wind which makes lining up a long distance shot difficult yet true to life. The sound effects were all great except the hard to control four wheeler. Sounded more like a chainsaw then a two-stroke power horse. The problem with the four wheeler and the snowmobile is that if you crash it you're out of luck and you are on foott for the rest of the hunt. Unfortunately this happens all too often. But hey, I guess you can't have everything.

Multiplayer is or will be available. At the time of review I could not find any servers up and running. After reading some forums, this seems to be a problem had by many. I expect Activison is working on it and they will be up soon. This I'm sure will add re-playability even for those master hunters who beat the game even on its toughest settings.

Graphics: 7
For a "value" game they were not too bad. The environments were quite nicely done, but the rest just seemed a bit blah. Keep in mind that this is supposed to be a budget minded game, so some sacrifices have to be made.

Sound: 8
Realistic sound effects definitely were in order here.

Concept: 5
Not exactly a new concept here. There are a ton of hunting games out there. I absolutely hate the idea of having to unlock games in order to hunt the animals I really want to hunt.

Overall: 7
This will appeal to those hunters who are familiar with big game type animals but if you are only in it for a few types of game, better to get a title that is geared to those animals. For a MSRP of 20 bucks you really can't go wrong if you are a hunter or a fan of the genre.