First Impression – Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2013 for Xbox 360

  • Pros: Lots of shooting action, good objectives
  • Cons: Mediocre environments, graphics and no leader boards.
  • Overall Rating:3/5
    • Design: 3/5
    • Features: 3/5
    • Performance:3/5
    • Usability: 3/5
    • Value: 3/5

I’m not a hunter; not even close to one, nobody I know is one. But I wanted to check out the long running hunting series, has come to a mature stage now and seemed like the 3D shooter would be well worth the wait (and worth the money) and it doesn’t disappoint..if you’re fine with mediocrity.

The worst part of this game I noticed was that it was okay at everything, a jack of all and a master of none. It wasn’t really bad at anything nor was it really good at anything. Just somewhere in – between.

The gameplay doesn’t capture the essence of hunting (at least from my perspective) it as good as comparing the first Battlefield and telling me that it captured the true essence of being in midst of a war. #NO.

The gameplay feels very arcadish, sort of like the new Call of Duty (especially in the story mode) just imagine big angry animals instead of zombies or soldiers and you get the concept. The stupid storyline doesn’t help the game either, it just makes you go “Oh. LOL”

Animals are cool though, and real angry. So you use things (again like any other FPS) sprinting, ducking, dodging attacks and rolling. Health Powerups and Ammo’s are found throughout the level, the “hunters eye” is like a zoom technique to find your next target, you can carry multiple weapons and this is honestly looking like a Call of Duty or another FPS review. Well, it’s not. This has animals.

Cabela Dangerous Hunts

Though it’s not comparable to the other elite FPS titles out there, the problem is that this is a very niche game and unless you belong to that niche. You WILL compare it.

Shooting and movements feel nice, everything works, functionally. Remember the first FPS you picked up for your old Xbox? Remember how everything looked good until it was far and as soon as you go close to it. BOOM! Pixels, choppy graphics etc. Well, if you were looking for such a game, Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2013 does not disappoint.

The voice acting is fine, cut scenes are low-res too (which is not something you’d want out of a 40$ video game)

Animal AI is bad, everything looks scripted and boring and it feels like you’re watching a low-res movie.

There are three modes in the game; one is the badly scripted FPS-like crap I have been talking about which I would recommend you not get into. The other mode is like the Co-Op in CoD (where you have challenges though you can even play them solo) and the final mode is where you have to meet a particular target score and you go into a frenzy of killing everything!

This isn’t my first hunting game. But this is certainly (and I’m sad to say it) is the best one out there obviously unless you have an old Nitendo + Duck Hunt cartridge lying around.

It’s an average shooter, with mediocre graphics and very meh levels/missions. Like any other shooter, you’ll take way more damage than you possibly can, and animals require you to kill them with more than one shot at times and also at times killing their leader will make them stop attacking you (WTF?)

Pick up the free demo if you have a gold membership on Xbox and see if you actually think it’s worth it.

I do have a Xbox, it's a standard 250GB one, no Kinect (yet) but I've pretty much been a gamer all my life, first started of with a used Nintendo Gameboy went from that to the Gameboy Advanced and finally the first PlayStation, followed by a PlayStation 2. Never found the PlayStation 3 quite interesting, loved the controller of Xbox :)