Cabela's Big Game Hunter (PlayStation 2)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 5.3 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Ryan Donald
• Reviewed on: 01/28/2003
• Released on: 11/26/2002
• Originally published on GameSpot: Cabela's Big Game Hunter (PlayStation 2) Review

Cabela's Big Game Hunter is the first hunting sim for any of today's high-end consoles, and that's probably its biggest accomplishment. While the game won't convince newcomers to the sport that they need to buy a deer rifle and plan a big hunting trip, it should be able to tide over hunters looking for some off-season adventure on their PlayStation 2s. On its own merits, though, it isn't much of a game.

Cabela's Big Game Hunter is conveniently set up in a way that will suit just about any hunter, no matter what their past gaming experience may be. If you're a hard-core hunter who wants to use all the scents, decoys, and spotting scopes to set up a traditional stalk, the game will allow you to do just that. But if you're a younger hunter who just wants to cruise around the game's open environments on a four-wheeler or snowmobile and take shots at fleeing animals, you can do that instead.

Three difficulty settings are available. The easy selection will actually let you see animals from afar by illuminating their positions with a red dot. The medium setting takes away the red dot but keeps the animal's artificial intelligence fairly low. The hard setting ups the animals' artificial intelligence quite a bit, which will require you to pay attention to the direction of the wind and how you approach the animals. When you start a game, you can either jump right in with a quick hunt, which just gets you set up and into the field, or you can enter the deeper career mode, which lets you unlock new locations and hunters to use. You can also select a custom log cabin where all your trophies are kept for you to look at later on. Included in the game are eight different locations, ranging from Alaska to Texas, and each location has an assortment of different animals to hunt, including polar bears, coyotes, and black-tailed deer.

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