Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2009

Good thing there’s a free magazine subscription

Posted 4 years ago By - Jeffrey Lansing

Another edition of Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts is here to give gamers a chance to hunt animals of the (you guessed it) dangerous variety. From hyenas to hippos it’s all here for the killing in this first-person shooter, although you’ll quickly discover that exciting prey doesn’t necessarily mean a good hunting game.


Gameplay

Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2009 comes up short time and time again when it comes to gameplay.

Beginning the Career mode in Russia as hunting extraordinaire Flint Abrahams, you’ll travel the world meeting up with friends and fellow hunters who give you the chance to take aim at up to 25 big trophy animals. Each level begins with an irrelevant little scene to set up the next hunting mission. They all start out very easily; hunt a cougar, kill a buffalo, tag a bear. But soon, something devastating will happen, forcing you to save someone, or kill something else, inevitably extending the mission. Although the intention of adding to the adventure is good, there is no reward for completing the additional challenges, and they take you away from what you thought you were supposed to be doing, tracking and hunting dangerous animals. One mission doesn’t tie into the other, and there is very little character development which could add more intensity to the plot.

Now as far as the hunting goes, it again disappoints. Armed with a couple high-powered hunting rifles, a handgun, some scent cover, and the occasional bait, you’re all set to track and stalk your prey. In addition to your handy equipment, with a quick press of the L3 button, you get “hunter sense”, a black and white view of your surroundings, which highlights any animal or other target. Unfortunately, meandering around the levels, in a completely non-evasive manner seems to be the easiest tactic for getting that trophy. Wait for the ominous sounding background music to start playing, try and find where the animal is coming from(not the easiest task) and if a couple of quick shots don’t get the job done hit the R3 button for a shot of “Adrenaline”. This will slow down the game “Matrix” style and allow you to pick apart your prey with relative ease. Sure this is probably not how the game is meant to be played, but considering most levels give you a time limit to complete the mission for bonus points, it’s almost encouraged.


Randomly throughout the game, when you’re attacked you’ll be engaged in what should be exciting hand-to-claw combat. The third person view adds to the excitement, but a couple of screen prompted swings of your sixaxis controller and you’ll stab or beat the attacker into submission. This type of fighting would be a great addition if 1) you could trigger it yourself, and 2) if you chose the melee attacks yourself.

The missions are also too linear. You’ll end up getting a number of objectives, with no flexibility in which they can be accomplished. If you try and leave an area of the map where an objective hasn’t yet been completed, the screen will go blank and reset, saying “you probably shouldn’t leave yet”. It just gives you a sense that everything is already predestined to happen in one particular order. Levels are relatively large, but not well laid out, adding frustration to your hunting trip as you often find yourself running into invisible walls because you’re unable to climb up a small slope or walk through a row of foot tall shrubs.

One cool part of the game is when you’re shooting a target animal from a long distance. When you get them in your cross hairs you pull the trigger, and a third person view takes over during the slow motion play of your kill. The camera tracks the bullet from above, until it knocks over your trophy kill and tells you how many points you’ve earned.

So how difficult is the game? It’s easy, except for a couple annoying aspects which can make it challenging. The game’s mission objectives aren’t always clearly defined, so you’ll find yourself doubling back, or worse, struggling to find where you need to go in the level to complete the objective. And when you are attacked by a faster animal, like a wolf or cougar, once they start running around you it can almost be impossible to see them, let alone shoot them. This leaves you helpless, and wishing they would just get on with it and kill you.


Graphics and Sound

The landscapes are varied, bringing you from snow covered forests to sand soaked safaris. The vicious animals have the fangs and growls necessary to scare anyone. Although their movements do seem a little fake and unreal. There are some nice touches to the worlds like butterflies and birds but nothing that sets it apart from other games.

Sounds are again, okay, menu music suits the game, but is repetitive. In game play offers some decent animal sound effects, but leaves you asking for more ambient sounds. The game also has the very noticeable and intense music that begins when you’re about to be attacked, and fades once the threat is gone. It’s a good touch, but isn’t always accurate, and can again become a tool to help you in the game.



Value

What you see is what you get with CDH 2009, there aren’t a whole lot of hidden levels here. With Career, Bonus Mission, and Action Zone(arcade style) options added with a couple of difficulty levels, you likely won’t find yourself coming back for more. One Bonus Mission I played had me spend over half an hour trying to find a crazy male elephant that I had to kill, worst thing is I could cover the entire level in about five minutes, so I’m not sure what I was doing wrong but I was awfully frustrated by the end of it. No matter which way you shake it, I can’t see a whole lot of reasons why someone would need or want to play through this game a second time.


Conclusion

The idea of heading out into the untamed wild to track, stalk and hunt beasts is an intriguing offer. CDH 2009 offers over two dozen real life animals to hunt, several high-powered weapons, and a good variety of environments. But the first-person shooter gameplay is terrible, the missions lack creativity, the storyline is non-existant, and the AI controlled animals are unbeatable in one instant, and too easy in the next.


Verdict

Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2009 is a weak game from start to finish, with very few redeeming qualities. The poor gameplay even has the ability to leave you frustrated and tempted to turn your console off. If you’re a big hunter, or enjoyed the past offerings from Cabela’s and Activision, then you might consider trying it. CDH 2009 is a rental at best.

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