Ultimate Hunt Challenge: Deer Demo

Hunting simulators cannot really be classified as shooters, because there’s not a lot of shooting involved most of the time. Tracking, following, and spotting the animals takes up most of the gameplay, while the actual shooting only takes a few seconds. However, those few seconds are much more important than they are in a regular FPS, which is why you really need to take your time and aim properly.

Ultimate Hunt Challenge: Deer was developed by EA SPORTS and it features large, open environments for you to explore and the deer to inhabit. Tracking game through the forest is easier said than done, because you need to pay attention to every detail, while also not making too much noise. Once you make contact with the prey, accuracy is paramount, because you don’t get a second shot if you happen to miss.

The in-game display is quite simple and compact, which leaves you with more space to enjoy the 3D graphics. There are some dials on the screen though, which display the speed of the wind and the direction you are heading into. Both need to be taken into consideration in order to be successful, because you don’t want the animals to smell you, much less get lost in the forest.

While you explore the hills in search for deer, a third-person camera is used, in order to make it simpler for you to navigate the environment and watch your surroundings. However, once an animal happens to enter your sights, you can quickly switch to a first-person perspective and use the on-screen crosshair to line up the shot. Obviously, this is much more accurate and it certainly makes it easier to aim.

As far as the graphics are concerned, the engine looks old and rusty right now, but you need to remember that the game came out a long time ago. Hence, the blocky polygons and the simple animations were the norm back then, not to mention the featureless environments and the awkward character movement.

There are much better alternatives than Ultimate Hunt Challenge: Deer out there, especially now when the technology evolved a great deal since then. Even so, you can still have some fun with it, if you decide to give it a try and see how the genre was approached back in the day.