Notes on Cabela’s “Trophy Bucks” From A Newly Unemployed Video Game Reviewer

Entertainment / Video Games / January 22, 2009

By Hank Pazzo

A country song begins. I have entered a ptarmigan challenge, and it says “I must take down as many Ptarmigans as I can!” When would I not kill as many animals as I could? Will this game ever ask me to be discrete? I hope not. Send in the bald eagles!

Okay, all kidding around aside, this ptarmigan ho down is the video game equivalent of a psychotic episode. I am standing in a field and birds are swarming me. This is like the shit Hunter S. Thompson saw at the beginning of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. What are these goddamned animals?! I shoot and shoot, and instead of fleeing, they keep coming in waves, flying seductively close together, begging me to kill two of them with one shot. I suspect there are really no ptarmigans, and I’m just a hunter standing in a clearing firing all his shells at invisible assailants. I win, and do my spinning dance of joy.

Next stop, Alaska. I wonder I’ll be able to feed a turkey I shoot into a grinder?

Fingers crossed!

I see three deer in a field. I aim carefully, remembering what my dad always used to say: “Shoot ’em in the body first, then you can shoot em in the head all you want!” Brought all three down! And their bodies disappeared before I could get to them. No skinning, no eating the heart. No sexual poses. Nothing.

This game totally misses the point of hunting.

And I’m spent. Even with a few wrinkles, Cabela’s Trophy Bucks takes a lot of the fun out of animal shooting. It needs a major overhaul to be worth your time or money. Not letting the bodies disappear would be a start, better guns would also be a real improvement, and cuter targets are a must. When Cabela’s Trophy Kittens hits store shelves, you can bet we’ll have full coverage, right here.

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9 Comments

Add your own

1. Joe Blow | January 22nd, 2009 at 10:06 am
This game totally misses the point of hunting
but it was good for a funny review
2. Koryavi | January 22nd, 2009 at 11:52 am
…Imagine my disgust when I’ve tried to shoot Amata (Fallout 3) and she’s just blacked out, sort of lay there for a bit,then stood up not a slightest bit dismayed with my character putting 7 bullets through her skull (some thick bones).
No joy of killing whatosoever.Might just revisit original Fallout.Even “M” games are getting more and more mainstream by the second.
3. Hank | January 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
And they won’t even let you turn the gun on yourself. That’s the part that really pisses me off. That would be the best ‘Quit to main menu’ option ever.
4. Allen | January 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
“And they won’t even let you turn the gun on yourself. That’s the part that really pisses me off. That would be the best ‘Quit to main menu’ option ever.”
Agree!
5. Dammerung | January 23rd, 2009 at 6:47 am
You have to wonder where good gameplay ends and a psychotic episode begins
6. Baked Dr. Luny | January 23rd, 2009 at 2:07 pm
It’s not good gameplay until you’re having a psychotic episode.
7. The Amazing Crustacean | January 23rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
The point where a psychotic episode begins is known as “the point of awesomeness”.
8. TheKlink | January 24th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Nothing stopping us putting children and animal models into a gta game and letting rip. other than talent that is.
9. UbelEngelis | February 3rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
My best suggestion this side of Menu by Suicide I think has to be the introduction of a pocket-pooch skeet shoot for training, when you run out of dogs, you can substitute any heiress/socialite of your choosing… Just a thought.