KMGR of "Hunting Unlimited: Big Game"

Image by CrowHand via FlickrHunting Unlimited:Big Game prides itself in offering a variety of challenges in hunting. You hunt several types of prey, and some predators, in fact. In HU:BG, you hunt deer (four varieties), bears, ducks (many different ones), even big cats (cougars, lions, and tigers), in four different locations across the world.

The graphics is mostly 2D reminiscent of Deer Hunter, but the four locations are different enough to not bore you. There are also 3 "hides" at each hunt location so if you don't feel too good about one location you can go to another one.

Each location has three hunt venues... the birds, using a shotgun, the "deer" (including elk, and so on), using rifle or bows, and finally, the predators (bear or big cats), using high power rifles or bows.

The bird hunt is reminiscent of classic "duck hunt", except you have limited ammo, 360 degree rotation, but you do have duck calls that can entice them to land and get closer and such. (However excessive use will scare them away). If you finish the first hunt location and accomplish all secondary objectives you'll get a bonus item: duck decoys. Each location has a bonus item, in fact, such as bipod for the rifle, laser ranger finder for bow and gun, and so on.

Same 360 view is available for the "deer" hunts. Usually you want the bucks (male) and not th

Ae does (female) as bucks have the rack (horns) but you have receive special requests as secondary objectives like "tribe needs you to kill 3 bucks and 2 does". While gun have good range, unless you have the bipod they do "shake" a bit. Bow, on the other hand, have very low range (under 100 meters).

The special hunts for predators often require you to kill a deer in order to bait the trap. THEN you can hunt those predators as they approach the "rack". Yes, it's possible to use a bow to hunt the big cats and bears.

On the other hand, the "records" section is sorely lacking. I was expecting a graphical "best kills", like maybe those deer heads you mount on walls? But it is all text. Argh! And I was expecting the graphics to be a bit better than this 2D stuff.

All in all, Hunting Unlimited: Big Game does not really break any boundaries when it comes to hunting games. You don't quite get the "RPG" feel of Deer Hunter 3, but the variety and secondary objectives makes up for that, just wish it gives you better "record kills" than a few lines of text.

Overall rating: 6.5 of 10
Pros: secondary objectives keep you coming back to try again and again
Cons: breaks no new ground at all, 2D graphics still disappoints