Hunting games are few and far between when one comes along they are always presented with an interesting quandary during the design process. Let's face it hunting isn't the most active of sports. The majority of your time is spent sitting in cover waiting for what feels like a lifetime, waiting for the prize to just stroll past into your sites. You get one shot to get your prize and then in a matter of seconds it’s come and gone and you find yourself waiting again. So how do you make a videogame that encompasses that feeling while still making it fun to sit down and play for longer than a few minutes? If the video game reflected the real life actions of a hunter then nobody would ever want to play it. So how can a developer make a hunting game that’s realistic and also enjoyable? We dive in and found out.

The game suffers from the same identity crisis that most Cabela games do, realism is not really a factor. With respect there isn’t much you can do to spice things up and keep the game exiting and fresh, after all it is a hunting game. Cabela’s offers the experience of sitting in a tree stand, waiting for your prey, all be it for an unrealistically short time period. It then tosses in some sort of bullet-time meter governed by adrenaline which makes things a little exiting but then after a while becomes annoying and dull. There’s also something called Hunter’s eye which strangely brings out your targets by highlighting them in some sort of orange glow and darkening the scenery behind them. I understand that they need to make the game appealing to a wide audience but to create something that makes you feel like you’re in a Lord of the Rings game we feel is a step to far. Big Game Hunter tries to offer up a realistic fun filled hunting experience that can be enjoyed by all, but when you're fighting a wild bear who can take several rifle and shotgun blasts from point-blank range, and have a hunter that can be mauled by a bear more than four times and live to tell the tail, you know something is wrong.

The gameplay in Big Game Hunter is more repetitive than you could ever imagine. It’s simply a case of playing a mini-game of shooting little varmints, going off and shooting a certain number of bigger animals, then going after the trophy. Achievement unlocked, reset and restart in a different hunting location. That’s pretty much all Cabela’s Big Game Hunter has to offer.

Another "exciting" part of hunting is exploration, just being able to chart out your own hunting ground and finding where the animals are hiding. Big Game Hunter holds your hand entirely too much with its painfully linear level designs and mission map that literally places a bulls eye on the piece of land where you can find your next target. Following the one available path to the clearly specified spot on a map isn't exactly what the experience of hunting should be like.

Cabela’s Big Game Hunter is the 3rd in the series and promised rather a lot. The 1st Cabela’s game (Cabela's Alaskan Adventures) was just another below average budget title that not many found appealing. The 2nd in the series (Cabela’s African Safari) broke somewhat of a mold, brandishing improved graphics and easier to use controls. The 3rd in the series (Cabela’s Big Game Hunter) offers almost exactly the same as the second but somehow doesn’t quite meet the standard. The gameplay and general feel of African Safari just seems to be thought out and executed far more successfully than this latest effort.

All in all we recommend that you buy the second in the series, you’ll be getting a better experience of hunting and enjoy it a lot more. The price tag of £29.99 is about right for a title your likely to be disappointed with if you enjoyed the second.