Take the shot!!

Hello fellow gamers. This is going to be the first review that is posted on this blog. My last post before the weekend was about Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2010, and this will be the initial review of the game.

First off, the Wii version peripheral (Top Shot rifle) is AWESOME. It's 25 inches long, made of sturdy plastic and fits the Wii remote and nunchuck perfectly. It was easy to assemble and even easier to use. Once I had the control scheme configured it was go time.

The game has a career mode and also several shooting galleries. To work on my shooting skills I loaded the shooting galleries first. What a great way to kill some time (get it?!?). I did two basic duck hunting galleries and one rabbit shooting showcase. All in all it was a great deal of fun. The targeting is simple and very forgiving with long distance marks. I had a great time playing each round several times with the only real drag being the need to reload during the timed shooting round.

As for career mode it had a really good start. The first mission is very basic with shooting deer, pronghorn, more deer and finally a MOUNTAIN LION. That's right, a cougar. Stalking the deer and shooting them from cover was a lot of fun. The one drawback of this game is that if you shoot a target and you fail to kill it, they run away and you are forced to start the mission over from the last check point.

There are several other interesting control quirks to this game other than just the giant rifle. To track animals you have to twist the rifle 180 degrees, which doesn't sound hard but can cause a case of the spins if done carelessly. Your character can sprint, and crouch. But using a Wii remote, these controls get tricky as the small number of buttons requires interesting button pressing combos to perform these simple functions. Once all the sneaking and tracking is done and you can finally see your targets, it's big time fun. The game shows you vital internal organs when you find a target and you can take your time (if you're hidden well) and line up your shot. My favorite part of this game series has always been the bullet's eye view you get as the animal goes down. This new game is no different. It's a lot of fun to watch as your bullet sails over trees and rocks and takes down a giant mule deer. It's less fun when your shots sail wildly astray and you then watch the target run off (this MAY have happened 5 or 6 times for me, who can remember?).

The big nugget at the end of the first level is the mountain lion hunt. You track the cougar down and then it attacks you and you have to fight it off. I found myself laughing as I wildly fired rifle shots trying to hit a target 1 meter in front of me. Once I finally realized I could switch to a shotgun the hunt ended quickly. But for those 20 seconds of random firings it was pretty intense. This seems like a great interactive game for groups of people. The shooting galleries add tons of replay value, and the career mode is both tactical and hilarious. I absolutely recommend this for Wii owners. And if you have a GameStop close by the game w/ gun bundle is on sale for $39.99 this week (10/18/09-10/24/09), at least in California that's the case...