PixlBit

We shouldn't be afraid to admit that sometimes we fall in love with games that aren't AAA titles, games that aren't popular, or games that aren't actually very "good". Here lies a story of such forbidden love.

I've been wanting to bring the next installment of the Guilty Pleasures series for a while now, and there's no better time than the present to make it happen. My first entry both detailed the designs of the platformer game The Hobbit, as well as explained my experience with it. This series isn't simply about fanboy love, rose-tinted glasses, or reviews. It's about looking at games I play and enjoy, and asking myself in every sense "Why". So without further ado, Autobots, let us roll.

2003 was a pretty good year for gaming. It saw the releases of games like Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, GTA Vice City, Silent Hill 3, Beyond Good & Evil, and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. There were however a couple odd smaller titles in 2003 that became permanant parts of my collection. Games that you might look at, or play for yourself, and wonder why I enjoyed playing them then, and still enjoy playing them now. The first of these was developer Sierra's stealth-action-adventure-platformer The Hobbit. With this new entry I want to talk about Romanian developer Fun Lab's first-person-shooter-hunting-simulation Cabela's Dangerous Hunts.

The game Dangerous Hunts is the first in a particular Cabela's series that has lasted from the original 2003 entry (the game this blog is about) all the way to the present, seeing it's most recent release with Dangerous Hunts 2011. By the time Dangerous Hunts released in 03', Bungie, a few years earlier, had already proven to PC shooter snobs that shooters could work well on consoles with Halo, and the console shooter craze we observe today was starting to gain momentum. We were getting accustomed to shooters playing smoother and faster than we could have ever experienced with the likes of Goldeneye 007 for Nintendo 64.

I'm not convinced that Dangerous Hunts was part of any bandwagon or movement in the industry as far as shooters go. Dangerous Hunts from day one seemed like a niche title, and even today I can't see the series as anything more than a niche series where people like me come along and pick it up so we can scurry back to our dens and simulate rubbing Buck urine all over ourselves. I know your eager eyes want to see the game, so let's take a look.

Keep in mind this was 2003. It's no CryEngine3 but, to be fair, Dangerous Hunts hasn't aged as badly as you'd expect

Textures wash out when you look at a screenshot and have time to scrutinize. But once the game is running live, your eyes forgive it quite a bit. Cabela's looks better in real-time, as do most games

As I mentioned earlier, Dangerous Hunts is in first-person. However, there are instances when the camera switches to third person, like when animals get in close proximity to the player, and when animals attack the player

The snow simulating particle effects are pretty neat, and the game certainly has a little variety in the color palettes used in its environment designs

What is Dangerous Hunts

Let's quickly explore the appeal and "hook" of the game and why I'd want to simulate hunting. I live in Colorado and we have plenty of mountains, wilderness, and hunting to go around, but I've never been on a real hunt. Some of that is ethical, but most of it is simple logic. I have the modern luxury of choosing not to. I can get food easily, I don't need meat stuffing my freezer to the gills for months, plus I like fishing better. I definitely attach to the appeal of simulating hunting though. I could try and theorize the psychology of it but it would likely bore the shit right out of you. I don't hunt but I simulate hunting, I fish but I don't play fishing-sim games. Escapism? Evolution? My brain trying to compensate for skills I haven't developed in real life? I'll leave those questions up to Dr. Phil (as if he knows a damn thing lol. His doctorate title is as fake as my confidence).

One of the things I love about playing Dangerous Hunts is the serenity it imparts to the player. From the sound design and visual presentation, to the level design, the game gives you an atmosphere in which you are amongst the elements. There is no orchestral bombast to be the soundtrack to your escapades, no NPCs bugging you, and no zombies or Flood to deal with. As you move around a level all you hear is natural ambient noise, water flowing, wind blowing, your footsteps, and animals making noise in the distance. If you manage to successfully sneak up on your target, and have avoided being eaten by predators in the process, you can pull the trigger and a loud shot is all that will disturb the serenity. When it comes to the visual presentation this next screenshot shows one of my favorite things about the art.

I love the skybox in Dangerous Hunts. The lighting, colors, and the pace that clouds move are just right. When you look up at the light source (the Sun) you begin seeing the Sun's "halo" optical phenomenon, as well as rays coming away from it, and the proportions and appearance of the effects change smoothly as your viewing angle changes

So the idea of simulating hunting is great, the atmosphere is great, but let's get to the guts of the game, it's gameplay. I rightfully called this game an FPS, but Dangerous Hunts has as many RPG and survival genre features in mind as it does first-person shooter features. Seeing as this is a mediocre niche FPS title you might assume that it would give up and be a bare-bones shooter with nothing to offer but movement, strafing, looking around, and shooting. You'd be dead wrong. When you begin the game you are able to create a character and choose between classes. Now when I say classes don't get your hopes up, there's no beastly Dwarf, long-legged Elf, or Human with giant breasts.

The classes are broken up by sex and age demographic like Adult Male, Adult Female, Young Male, Young Female, Older Male, Older Female, and each class has statistical differences that make enough sense and seem harmless enough, but for the more sensitive people reading this, you might be offended by the game's gender stereotyping and sexism. For example the Young Male is stronger and more resiliant, while the Young Female is weak but has better shooting skill and animal tracking. The older characters are all weak but their experience has led them to better tracking and stealth skills. All characters can be upgraded as you complete missions in Career Hunt though so if your Female is a weakling, she doesn't have to be forever. Plus you can compensate for statistical differences a bit by buying certain gear and preparing yourself well, as well as just using good strategy. Let's get a look at a couple of these "classes" and while we are at it I want to show you the stat system.

Her character strikes a decent enough balance at the moment

This jabroni is tough and knows how to shoot, but he's as stealthy as an elephant walking on bubble wrap

Skills like shooting, stealth, and tracking are pretty straitforward. Shooting skill increases stability of your shots, stealth makes you harder to detect, and tracking increases your chances of picking up animal tracks. The strength and resilience skills are a bit more complicated because they appear to affect a host of seperate traits that make themselves known when you play. I will look at those extra traits in a moment

So once you pick a character you can take your character and use him or her in any of 3 game-play modes. Quick Hunt, Action Zone, and Career Hunt. Talk about a buffet of win. Quick Hunt is self-explanatory and lets you get into a hunt quickly, but the great thing is that you can customize the whole experience by using whatever weapons, clothing, and accessories you want, and the money you use doesn't have to be earned. In Quick Hunt you are also able to choose the level, season, what animal you want to hunt, and buy a tag for said animal. Action Zone is like an arcade kind of mode where you complete odd tasks and missions and each time you complete one it unlocks some more. From what I remember Career Hunt isn't too different from Action Zone, but Career Hunt has a story I guess lol, plus you have to earn your money for equipment, and you can earn skill points. I mostly just do Quick Hunt because it's fast to get into, completely customizable, and a story isn't forced on me.

When you go on a hunt the level loads up, there's a short cut-scene showing brief scenes of the animals in that level and what they're up to. Maybe you bought a license to hunt a deer and so the scene will show you a couple deer to pick from all around the map grazing, sleeping, etc, but it might also show a few wolves, mountain lions, or other predators wandering around (you might run into them at some point, you might not). The levels themselves are almost all wide-open and have various paths connecting open areas together, and there's no start and end. It's a sandbox for you to hunt in. While wandering around you can use whatever loot you bought like attractive scents, scent covers, salt licks, predator calls, pieces of meat, tree stands, ground blinds, and decoy animal statues. I don't use too much equipment, I just sneak around till I see my target, and then I find the best time to snipe it with my rifle, use my bow, or if I'm feeling frisky I might get close with a shotgun or knife. Let's take a look first at one of the level designs, and then at some of the gear you can aquire.

Using a GPS tool to look at a topographical map of the Parkland, Alberta level. Mountains on the outskirts form the boundaries to this level, and within the boundaries the encounter spaces consist of a variety of open areas connected by paths and portions of the river that can be crossed

I wasn't kidding when I talked about rubbing urine all over yourself lol. Equipment costs money, has weight to it, and the amount you carry effects how quickly your character gets tired when out in the field. This player so far has a lever-action rifle with 30 rounds, a revolver with 20 rounds, a scope for his rifle, and an animal-call of some kind

Earlier I was showing you that "under the hood" of Dangerous Hunts, the game is run by an RPG inspired statistical system that effects your character. I mentioned there were some extra traits that you notice when you finally get into the game. On the HUD (heads-up-display) you will notice a health gauge and stamina gauge, as well as condition, nutrition, and hydration meters. Here's a screenshot of the HUD for reference as I explain the components.

Starting with the bottom left side of the HUD: On top is a compass. Directly below is a health gauge represented by a heartbeat monitor. To the left of the health gauge is a stamina gauge represented by a verticle green bar. Your character's levels of condition, nutrition, and hydration are quantified in meters as blue blocks

I've been playing this game for years and I still don't fully understand how all these meters work, nor have I fully put them all to the test. Your health gauge is represented by a heartbeat monitor and its color will change as you take damage. You can purchase a medical kit before beginning a level so that you can heal yourself out in the field. The stamina gauge depletes as you run around, and regenerates once you slow down or stop. In the event the stamina gauge depletes and forces you to slow down while it regenerates, the fact that you depleted it will effect your condition meter by chopping off blue blocks. Nutrition and hydration deplete as you stay out in a level longer and undergo stresses to all the other gauges and meters. You can replenish nutrition and hydration by purchasing a corresponding hyrdration bladder or MRE (meal-ready-to-eat). In practice, this system is convoluted and I've never had to worry much about starving to death, dying of thirst, etc. I'm never out in a level long enough to see the meters deplete, and I'm not sure what happens when they do deplete. The overall health and hunting effectiveness of your character is represented and run by a fairly deep and intricate system that doesn't make much sense and there's quite a lot of variables and systems interacting with eachother in ways that aren't always clear.

So this system of stats doesn't work very effectively or clearly in practice, but that's not what's important to me. What's surprising is the fact these deep and intricate systems even exist in the first place. They could've just given me a gun, and put me in front of some animals, right? Nope. Obviously the developers were striving for far more than just a simple shooting gallery. The systems of health, stamina, condition, nutrition, and hydration indicate an urge to make the player feel like they are surviving out in the wild and must care for their character's bodily needs in addition to the primary goal of hunting successfully. Even though it doesn't work too well in practice for this game, I'm inspired by the efforts of the developer because their design shows a unique and ambitious vision. If this system were to be fleshed out it could offer a style of gameplay that you don't find in other games.

The way I see it, Dangerous Hunts could be considered a prototype for a game that should strive to achieve flexible open-world level designs, dynamic encounters, animals programmed to simulate living in ecosystems, shooter mechanics, survival genre sensibilities, inventory management, customizable characters and weapons, and a RPG statistical system under the hood powering it all.

Successfully hunting an animal will reward you with a boat-load of data to give your target an identity, as well as data to rate your hunt, and loot to reward your patience and skill. When you kill "nameless terrorist # 117" in a normal FPS, it's a very different experience

To begin wrapping up my thoughts on what this particular installment of the Dangerous Hunts franchise is, I want to mention the AI in the game as well as the technical polish of the game. One of the things that makes this game's experience dynamic is the fact that predators and prey occupy levels together and will sometimes interact with one another by chasing each other, eating each other, and sometimes the animal you're hunting might be taken advantage of by a predator other than you. In 2008 the reboot of the Turok: Dinosaur Hunter franchise touted its AI by saying that dinosaurs would interact with each other and represent a dynamic ecosystem. I wasn't too surprised by that bullet point, because I had already seen it work in Dangerous Hunts in 2003.

There have been plenty of times where I start a level, set out to hunt my Moose, and at some point I sneak upon a frantic real-time scene where my Moose is being hounded by a pack of wolves and eventually eaten. My mission ends unsuccessfully, but I'm stuck thinking, "Wow wolves iz dicks, but that was cool!" The wolves did what they were programmed to do, and that is act like wolves. The variety of animals create a sense of ecosystem, and they let you know you're not the only predator in the world looking for a kill. Sometimes predators will find your target naturally and hunt it themselves, sometimes they will come across you and force you into a kill or be killed situation, and sometimes the other predators in a level won't ever come across prey or the player character.

In regards to the technical polish of the game, it's very stable and reliable. I've been playing for years and I can't remember ever encountering a single freeze, corrupt save file, game breaking bug, or even expected glitches like seeing animals phase through walls. My experience has been very clean and consistent.

Similar to real life, the cape buffalo can be extremely hostile. Coming across aggressive animals or predators happens sometimes, and they don't usually want to have a picnic...

...Except this guy. "ROARZ! LET'S HAZ PICNIC!"

What I love most about Dangerous Hunts

My favorite thing to do in this game is take extremely long shots at an animal from across the map. I like loading a wide-open level, equipping a powerful rifle, and taking shots at a target that's so far away it's not even visible. You have to play on Easy difficulty to do this because on Easy, the game will put red markers over all animals on the map and you will be able to see the red marker at all times as you move around, and as the animal itself moves around. So, I see where the red dots are in the distance, I try to get to highground like a hill (and I deploy a tripod stand to perch myself on to get extra height), and I begin taking shots to "see where the animals are". In Dangerous Hunts when you fire a bullet or arrow it will always show you a skippable bullet-cam scene where you see exactly where your round is going and the journey it takes to an animal. I exploit this feature and use it as an overhead drone. I shoot across a level and as my bullet passes over terrain I study the land to see where animals are, if they're in a valley, hidden by trees, in a place where a bullet can get to them, etc.

Even though the animals are so distant they can't be seen, if your drone reconaissance reveals that the animal is in a clear line-of-sight, you can start preparing your shot. Your bullet will change trajectory as it travels over a distance, so you have to compensate for the curve of the bullet by aiming high. There's some pretty satisfying sniper experiences out there in shooters, like exploding people's heads in Gears of War, but there's truly nothing like sniping in Dangerous Hunts. When you line up a shot at a moose from a few hundred yards away, take your shot, see it fly over hills, through trees, narrowly missing terrain, the suspense and anticipation go through the roof. Clouds fly by in the sky above, the bullet dips as it travels the great distance, and you see it finally impact straight into the oblivious moose for a clean instantaneous kill. It's enough to make you toss your controller in the air and jump for joy lol.

Why Dangerous Hunts is different

Now I don't usually rant about things, and I promise this series won't always involve ranting but with the final part of this entry I feel the need to explain why this original Cabela's Dangerous Hunts is so important, and why I'm not showing the same love to the other games in the series. As I've been showing you, Dangerous Hunts is a lesser-known niche game that sports very uncharacteristically complex systems with a unique multi-genre influence behind it. The same can't be said for the more recent installments of the Dangerous Hunts series. After this original 2003 installment, future games in the series immediatly started turning into story-driven FPS games with a focus on action and drama.

Back of the box for Dangerous Hunts 2009. Look at all the bullet-points and notice how there are no Quick Hunt, Action Mode, Career Hunt, etc being advertised. Basically there's not much variety to this game. You don't choose your own pace, have any control over the environment, or the mission. Every single picture shows the player getting attacked by rabid, hyper-violent critters

I bought Dangerous Hunts 2009 in hopes that it would carry on the gameplay and visions of the 2003 iteration but what I got was completely different than what I expected. Lol, this gets really ridiculous guys and even though I hate it, I have to admit it's hilarious. The game focuses on Abraham Flint (the guy is a gross stereotype of a redneck, gun-toting, self-appointed badass who has no respect for nature) who takes a trip Russia with his buddy Sergei, and while they're hunting in Russia, Flint's comrade Sergei gets killed by a bear. So being the sensible guy Flint is, his natural reaction to this tragedy is that he convinces himself he must travel the world and hunt dangerous animals to become the world's greatest hunter. LOL! The premise is absurd, the voice acting and script are even worse, and the way it represents "hunting" and "animals" are quite offensive to me.

As far as gameplay is concerned, levels are littered with quick-time-events (QTE's) where Flint gets attacked by savage animals and must wrestle them or toss them around to protect himself before eventually putting bullets in their skulls. In the first level one of your goals is to protect a camp of hunters from an invading pack of lions. The animals in this game no longer act like animals do, and they no longer live in ecosystems. The animals in Dangerous Hunts 2009 are just basically single-minded enemies from any FPS. If you replaced these animals with Nazis, you could call this game Medal of Honor. In the 2003 original, the game at least showed a measure of respect by trying to create a realistic world where animals lived and acted realistically. In the newer games, the atmosphere and narrative has become the gaming embodiment of everything horrible about sport hunting, psychos with guns, and animal themed horror films.

There's nothing I need to say about the story except, "Why?". Since when does a hunting simulation need a story? If all you can come up with is Flint, Sergei, hyper-violent animals, and hyper-masculine hunting conquest, why make a story at all? Honestly if there was a Quick Hunt mode where I could just do whatever I wanted, customize the experience as well as my character, and ignore the seperate story mode, I would just forgive these newer Dangerous Hunts games and possibly even adore them. When I play the original 2003 game, I don't have to endure a fast-paced forced story, I can just simulate hunting in ways that I want to do it.

Nothing says "good story" like taking a Desert Eagle and using it to blast a polar bear while it chases a helpless native

If I don't wipe out all these lions, people wont think I'm a badass! Get ready to die assholes! U-S-A! U-S-A!

The visuals are beautiful, but that's the only great thing the newer Dangerous Hunts add to the series. Cue up the next quick-time-event please!

So the Dangerous Hunts series has come a long way and turned into a franchise I don't want to play anymore, but I wanted to take this time to show love to the original game so that people know it wasn't always like this, and we can do much better than what we have at the moment. The 2003 original wasn't excellent in its execution, but it had more depth, variety, and apparent ambition than most games have even today in 2012.

I really want this series to ignore the status-quo, return to its roots, flesh out the great ideas it started with, and make something unique and sophisticated for a contemporary audience. Let's turn this series around, get rid of the melodrama, and end the wilderness soap-opera antics. Gamers aren't stupid, give them choices, challenge them! Program the animals to act like real animals, create large open levels, allow upgrades, customization, personalization, inventory management, exploration, stealth, survival, and hunting all running on an RPG stat-based system. Also, don't shove a hilariously bad story down their throats. I love the 2003 Dangerous Hunts and I want another great realistic hunting-sim.

When it comes to this old chestnut of a game, nostalgia can only account for so much of my love. In its design, Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2003 is actually a very solid, consistent, fun game, with plenty of choice, variety, beautiful environments, and interesting mechanics. It's not an amazing game by any means and it doesn't need to have a place in anybody's "best of all time" lists, but this game does have a place in my collection as well as in my heart. And that's good enough for me.

With this edition of Guilty Pleasures finished and online for all of you to read, I can finally move on out of the 2003 theme. The series definitely isn't confined to odd 2003 titles lol. The Hobbit and Cabela's Dangerous Hunts just happened to come out the same year and I figured I'd add that fact into the narrative for these two entries. Future Guilty Pleasures entries will be about any and all games I have a guilty pleasure for, and there are many good ones to look forward to!