505 Games has been busy this year with a handful of releases (Naughty Bear, IL 2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, Back Breakers) and the list goes on. They have their hand in just about every genre of video game, as well as making them available on almost every platform.
Exclusive to the Xbox 360 Field & Stream Total Outdoorsman Challengeis exactly what it shows on the cover, hunting in the woods! Field & Stream brings the ultimate thrill of the hunt, right to your home! As the best hunter (in your eyes) in the business, you use real-life hunting skills to bag “trophy” animals from beautiful landscapes throughout North America. Hunting with a variety of weapons such as high-calibre hunting rifles, handguns and crossbows as you stalk and shoot your prey in a true to life hunting simulation game.
Other features in the game include:
•Learn a variety of authentic hunting skills, including balance, bullet trajectory, weapon aim and expert tracking techniques.
•Hunt more than 30 big game, native and fowl species across multiple environments rich with wildlife activity in varying weather conditions and day/night hunting cycles.
•Race to complete a mission before your opponent in the online multiplayer versus modes, where you can manipulate the environment to sabotage the competition.
Impressions:
From playing the unlimited timed Demo, your objective is to kill a dozen special breed of Deer. You’re dropped in the middle of an American forest. You have a choice of two rifles but only one of them will actually get the job done, as well as a deer noise maker for getting a idea of where your prey are. Hunting can be a little tedious, as you’re walking and making deer’s sounds in hope of finding some game where you walk can sometimes give your location away. Once you find your prey, you must set yourself up for the kill by going into scope and controlling your breath for the optimized shot. The targeting isn’t the best as the targeting
while in scope mode is really jittery and not as realistic as one would think.
The detail in the environment looks great with some of the animals walking through trees wasn’t a big deal in the demo but should be fixed by release date hopefully. Rain and thunder sounds very similar to the outdoors and gave a great feeling of actually being outdoors.
A neat feature is various animals leave tracks and other ways of finding them easier than just calling out to them. Eventually in the retail version you will be able to use scents and other methods of attracting prey towards you.
After a successful kill (from the neck to the head, body shots don’t do anything), you gets points for collecting the trophy of the animal.
Some touch ups here, maybe some there and Field & Stream Total Outdoorsman Challenge should give fans of the genre something new and fresh to the stranglehold that only but a few developers that make video games for the Fishing, Hunting, and Sports genre.
Field and Stream: Total Outdoorsman Challenge hits shelves exclusively for the Xbox 360 tomorrow.
Check out some footage of the game below.
[pro-player width=’530′ height=’253′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVYN62DJvcY[/pro-player]
