Deer Hunter 5: Tracking Trophies (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 6.3 (3.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Stephen Poole
• Reviewed on: 01/07/2002
• Updated on: 05/17/2006
• Released on: 08/29/2001
• Originally published on GameSpot: Deer Hunter 5: Tracking Trophies (PC) Review

With the release of Deer Hunter 5: Tracking Trophies, Sunstorm Interactive is now responsible for the creation of 10 deer-hunting simulations and add-on discs--eight in the Deer Hunter line and two Buckmasters titles. That track record should virtually guarantee Deer Hunter 5 to be a winner right out of the box. Instead, it reveals that developer Sunstorm Interactive has run out of new ideas for its flagship game line. It also reveals that the company apparently rushed the game out the door so that it'd be on store shelves in time for the Christmas shopping season.

One clue that more time could have been spent polishing Deer Hunter 5 comes in the game's online help file. That is, if you're running into trouble accessing the six items that can be used without opening your hunter's backpack, you might read the section called "Understanding the Backpack Inventory" to see what you're doing wrong. Amazingly, you'll discover a document that was left over from the QA process of the game's development. It repeatedly refers to the user in the third-person and the developers in the first-person ("We need to make sure we keep track of what sporting arms hit the game animals"). It says that only five slots are available for immediately usable items when there are actually six and that the primary sporting arm uses up one of those five slots (it doesn't). And the "Multiplayer Game Types" section says there are three types of multiplayer games and then goes on to describe just two, though that's really the least of Deer Hunter 5's multiplayer problems.

The most telling hint that the game may have been shipped before it had been through rigorous testing, however, is found in the readme file that comes with the 1.2 patch: It lists more than three dozen fixes for problems and bugs in the retail version. To be fair, no initial release of a PC game is 100 percent bug-free, thanks in no small measure to the issue of video and sound-card drivers. But most of Deer Hunter 5's first round of fixes involve things that should have been caught before the game shipped--racks on fawns, incorrect textual descriptions, faulty animal AI, incorrect scores, and so forth. Sunstorm should be applauded for releasing a patch so quickly, but it doesn't change the fact that the shipping version of the game should have been more thoroughly tested.

Once version 1.2 is installed, most fans will probably find Deer Hunter 5's setup screens to be instantly familiar. From the main menu, you choose from one of six hunter models (five male and one female, assuming the spooky-looking guy who looks as though he's ready for chemical warfare is indeed male), select from three difficulty settings, and decide on the hunting mode. Daily hunts are self-explanatory; tournaments let you compete against up to seven bot hunters in a hunt ranging in length from five minutes to an hour; hunting seasons let you "manage" a deer herd (in other words, planting crops and killing off undesirable critters) over the course of several years; and hunt online is the game's multiplayer mode, though LAN play means you don't have to be "online" to enjoy this option.

Deer Hunter 5's weapons rack is well stocked, with 12 rifles, three bows, two shotguns, and a pistol (the .44 Magnum from Deer Hunter 4 has mysteriously disappeared), and you can now carry a second weapon as well as choose various grain loads for every firearm (the online manual makes another miscue here by listing a single grain for each gun). As with any Deer Hunter title, you can also choose from a panoply of hunting accessories--such as scents, calls, bait, stands, and blinds--but seasoned Deer Hunter fans will notice the addition of several new items. Specifically, Deer Hunter 5's new dangerous animals means you can outfit yourself with new items to lure elk and bear into your gun sight (the online manual lists mountain lions as another threat, but there's no gear tailored to hunting them).

Gear or no gear, your chances of encountering any of these beasts unless you're ready to invest a considerable amount of time and virtual legwork into tracking them down are slim. In one session, after many hours of gameplay, the only new game animal we saw was a mountain lion fleeing for its life across the Mexican desert. That's too bad, because Hunting Unlimited, one of Sunstorm Interactive's other PC games, revealed just how exciting--and challenging--it can be to tackle these critters when they're in a bad mood.

After you've loaded up your backpack with equipment, you set off to one of seven destinations, including British Columbia, Montana, Idaho, Michigan, Texas, Mexico, and the target range in New York (you can hunt here, too, but without any special gear). Whitetail, blacktail, and mule deer can be tracked, and in the hunting season, you can try to thin the herd of bad genes and hopefully bag a truly memorable trophy buck after several years of work. Thankfully, the manual gives pointers on how you should "manage" your deer herd, and if you follow the instructions, you'll see some very nice racks start to appear on bucks--especially on the highest difficulty settings.

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