Deer Hunter

Future generations will never know the mysteries of the value bin. Sure, Steam has cheap games, but I’m talking the literal bin in a computer store with a hodgepodge of game cases you’d have to sift through to (maybe) find treasure. It wasn’t always price-slashed inventory that hadn’t been selling, either – stores like Wal-Mart, CompUSA, or your local equivalent, had dedicated shelf space for intentionally-created budget software. Educational software was a staple. Home design software was extremely common, for some reason. And so, so many “500 Action Games Power Pack!” style CD compilations that would eventually coin the term shovelware.

Why bring this up? Because today we’re looking at the undisputed U.S. champion of the 90’s value bin.

Deer Hunter absolutely baffled the computer games industry by being the first budget title to reach over a million copies sold in one year. Value-priced at an MSRP of $19.99, that’s still a load of profit. When you look at sales charts for 1998, Deer Hunter’s sitting right up there with heavy-hitters like StarCraft, Riven, Quake II, and Tomb Raider II. Still, it reviewed poorly in gaming magazines, while capital-G Gamers and industry press could not understand how a stupid hunting game could have so many buyers. Was it beer-swilling rednecks with their first home computer? Was it suckers ignorant of what a proper game was?

According to the developers who made it in just three months (to make the Christmas 1997 rush), it’s because Deer Hunter is the first game to realistically model the sport of hunting. Fishing games had been having success by doing just this, so why not take the same approach for deer? It clearly worked out for everyone, because Deer Hunter would see 14 more titles, just in its own series – to say nothing of later competitors like Cabela’s Big Game Hunter or its own spin-offs, Trophy Hunter and Bird Hunter.

But we’re not looking at any of those today. We’ll also save the expansion packs for later. This is the original experience from October, 1997 – just you, one of three locations, one of three possible weapons, and an endless supply of skittish digital bucks.

I should start with the disclaimer that I’ve never been hunting. Some of the reason is from not always living where the trees are, but most is having no real desire to end the life of a clueless animal for my own fun. That’s not to say I believe I’m better than someone who does hunt – I acknowledge deer are essentially big, destructive rats, that most hunters use what they kill, and I personally have ruined the day of a fair number of fish. But it is to say that I start this game knowing basically nothing about the subject, so Deer Hunter’s got a lot of teaching to do.

Right away, it’s obvious that photorealism was one of the game’s key goals. “Photorealism” for 1998 means blurry digital photos of landscapes and trees, all scaled appropriately to mimic distance.  You can see some color speckling in the leaves, while the backgrounds are kind of a smeared mess – 640×480 is the only resolution with no settings to adjust. Nothing in the scenery moves. Grass and trees don’t sway, while only a handful of different tree images give the view a very cardboard cutout feel. But you know what? It kind of works. Some looping nature sounds play in the background and you can sort of imagine peering through the dense forest, looking for any sign of a buck nosing about.

The technical tradeoff for photorealism is being stuck in place. You can only pan left and right, like an old QuickTime real estate video. Moving the mouse closer to either edge of the screen pans faster, letting you pull off a full 360 in about one second at the fastest speed. Trees zip by accordingly, with some blur if you’re on an authentic CRT monitor (and some choppy-choppy if on a modern LCD). You can look up and down to a very limited degree, but this is hardly ever necessary. Deer don’t fly, after all.

Since you can’t walk around, Deer Hunter uses an overhead map screen to move you through the forest. At any time, you can switch between first person view and map view, with a crosshair on the map view indicating your position. A wide circle surrounding that crosshair shows your sight range in first person. The intent is for these two screen to seamless interconnect – spy a buck fleeing West in first person, then accurately follow him in that direction on the map.  Trees are the only terrain marked and wherever you drop into first person will roughly approximate how dense the trees are on the map. Even gunshots in first person will theoretically scatter all nearby bucks on the map screen.

Clicking the mouse marches your crosshair through the woods in a straight line. When you stop, the game checks if there are any deer sign within your radius; either bedding, antler scrapes, or spoor. The manual tells you these are clues that a deer was nearby recently, but you can’t rely on them completely. I misunderstood this in my early attempts – walking around the woods and popping into first person only when I found a sign, thinking the deer would be waiting. It doesn’t work like that. Too many things will spook deer, so usually he’s gone by the time you find the sign – but we’ll look into those mechanics in a bit.

Otherwise, nothing is ever marked on the map – no deer icons, no tracks to follow, no previously discovered signs – absolutely nothing to indicate how many deer are around, if any at all. The manual does give some hints of where to look, telling you that deer stick to the tree lines and won’t hang around in the open, but finding one is still entirely guesswork. First person view and the map screen never feel connected, nor does it ever feel like you’re stalking a buck. Instead, it’s a whole lot of trying spots and finding nothing, while the deer invisibly avoid you or run away. Clicking blindly around the empty map, hoping a deer might be in that spot, is the world’s most boring game of Battleship.

I will also acknowledge that this is a game marketed towards sportsmen defined by their patience. You also wouldn’t have any better idea of where a deer is in real life.  Still, I found nothing about clicking around the map to be fun or engaging. Hunting sessions just broke down into “click and check” – pick a spot, spin around in first person, try a new spot. Finding a deer always felt like a total crapshoot. This is where Redneck Deer Huntin’ (with its walkable 3D environments) was looking to directly compete. I also think it’s telling that Deer Hunter II got away from this setup in 1999 and the series never looked back.

There are no difficulty settings in Deer Hunter. Instead, which of the three provided locations you choose is going to determine most of the challenge. Indiana in winter probably has the best visibility – trees are sparse with no leaves, while the snowy white background makes any movement pop out. Arkansas’ autumn foliage can get crowded, but still has open patches where you can get a good line on a roaming buck. The Colorado foothills are lousy with evergreens. I had my hardest times trying to even spot a deer here. Bucks are basically the same anywhere, with only a loose suggestion in the manual that the biggest bucks are in Indiana, so maps only offer seasonal variety. Regardless of location, you want to stick to somewhat open areas on the map. You’ll never find a buck that’s gone into the dense trees.

Your weapon also contributes to difficulty, with three scaling choices – a scoped rifle, a shotgun, and a compound bow. The rifle is by far the easiest, with an infinite range and pinpoint accuracy. Deer will disappear at the edge of the game’s draw distance well before they’re out of rifle range. There’s a bit of sway to the scope, magnified with distant targets, but putting crosshairs on the center of the deer always counts as a kill. The manual talks about needing to hit the “kill zone” toward the front chest, but that doesn’t seem to apply to the rifle. The only possible downside is its slow, bolt-action reload. You have two shots at best before a deer scampers to the horizon and relocates to the next county.

It’s also worth noting that any motion you see is going to be a legal buck. There are no other hunters to watch out for, no fawn or doe, no other animals at all except trophy bucks. You have binoculars and the scope, but you’ll never need them to make sure a deer is clear to shoot. The one exception is that the hunt ends when you down a single buck (all that fits in the truck, I’m sure). If you click on a buck with binoculars out, the hunter will whisper his estimated point value, so it might be worth looking for a big one before you take the shot. Since you only get one, you’re going to want to get the most… ahem… bang for your buck.

The shotgun and the bow both require bucks to get closer. There’s no option for different ammo types here, just buckshot and regular ol’ arrows, so now you’re going to have to use the lures. You always carry a deer call and some antlers. The manual suggests honking the deer call a few times and then rattling the antlers once. Use either too often and the buck will ignore you or get spooked. Do it just right, and I assume you’ve said some disparaging things about his mother, because he’ll come storming over. At a medium distance, you’re good to try with the shotgun. The “kill zone” does seem to apply here, as anything other than a shot from head-on seemed to send him fleeing no matter how close he got.

You also have the option of using a tree stand. You select this from the menu and automatically deploy it any time you drop to first person. It blocks your view in one direction (two, if you end up sitting in the V made by some tree branches), but is required for a buck to get the closest to you. The manual says deer can see you in the game, so you’ll need to use the tree stand to get a deer close enough for a straight bow shot. The compound bow has two different aiming pins, for 20 and 40 yards – heading to the optional target range map really helps you get a sense of distance and when to release.

Bow and shotgun will require more caution, but you’ll have to manage your scent with any weapon. Both the overhead map and the first person view indicate the wind direction, which can change as the hunt goes on. At the most basic, you’re going to want to approach deer with the wind on your face, pushing your scent away. You can also optionally add Cover Scent and Attractant Scent before a hunt. You don’t get a penalty for using these, beyond having it mentioned in the trophy room (not using them is a more skilled kill?) Cover is supposed to block your human stank while Attractant is supposed to make it easier to get a bumbling deer to approach.

But remember, you can’t SEE the deer on the map. Deer signs don’t cluster in a way that lets you pinpoint a deer either. It’s a ton of guesswork, with scent rules that may or may not make a difference. Playing legit, there are a ton of questions that the manual doesn’t tell you – intentionally leaving some mystery to the hunt. Is Attractant is working? How many deer are around? Do new deer cycle in?

Fortunately, we can answer these with cheat codes. Typing “dhbambi” on the map screen makes icons for all the bucks appear. Using this, we can see that new bucks do cycle in from the edges of the map as spooked bucks leave, so that each map always holds a set number of deer. Arkansas has the most, with 4-5. Indiana has the least with 2-3, which definitely tracks with how long I’ve walked around without spotting a buck. We can also see that deer sign get dropped sporadically, maybe every 15-30 seconds, and that sign disappears in about a minute. I’ve watched deer poop and run, confirming that they can already be well out of range when you find a sign. They’re also always moving, with about 4 seconds before they decide their next move. You can often stand next to a deer and not even know it, meaning frequent checks in first person are definitely useful.

It’s also clear that scent makes a big difference. Walking toward a deer with your scent blowing towards them repels them like a magnet – they are surprisingly fast sprinters and quickly relocate much further than I would have expected. Attractant influences nearby deer toward you, at more of a gentle nudge. You can’t slap it on, stand in the middle of a map, and wait for all bucks to beeline toward you like a Disney princess. They also ignore it enough that I never got a clear answer on whether you should put the wind on your back when using Attractant, so that the scent blows ahead of you and spreads around. I also couldn’t get a clear picture if using both Cover and Attractant cancel each other out and confuse the deer.

But there’s clearly more going on than just scent. A second cheat code “dhstealth” is supposed to nullify your scent entirely. With it on, deer still spook and flee for no obvious reason. Can they hear you? Does moving around on the map too much scare them? In fact, they sort of behave like you’re teleporting any time you switch to first person view – they seem fine, only to bolt seconds after you arrive. The tree stand shows us that deer can see you to some degree, but it’s not clear if panning left and right counts as “movement” that causes them to run.

In the name of realism, the game ain’t telling. Remember, the above knowledge comes from cheat codes – you’re going to know nothing if playing the game normally, just marching around an unmarked map screen. The fact that it’s still difficult to pin a deer down with game-breaking cheats on should give you an idea of whether you’ll like this game or not. The hunt never artificially ends until you’ve popped a deer – the sun doesn’t set, the park doesn’t close, and deer always eventually fill the map back to maximum, so you can keep trying forever. But I’ve definitely spent 15 real-time minutes criss-crossing the map and finding no deer (without cheats, natch). It’s entirely possible to give up and leave a hunt empty-handed. If that’s a little too realistic for you, then that’s kind of understandable.

And that’s pretty much all Deer Hunter’s got. Try your hand at other locations. Get better with the other weapons. See what the biggest buck you can find and bag is. The game tracks the five most valuable trophies you’ve recently downed, so you can brag to anyone you can convince to care. But there’s no end to the game, no Grand Buck to find and slay. This pointlessness was probably the biggest contemporary criticism to the game.

Coming at it strictly as a gamer, there’s something to those low reviews. There’s just not much going on here, with simple gameplay that reminds me of Flash games from the early 2000s. This is not a deer hunting RPG. You will not level up your skills, unlock new equipment, or change anything about the experience whatsoever. You will simply try to bag a deer and hope that its randomized stats are better than your current trophy. Coming in as a hunter doesn’t make it sound much more interesting either. The virtual experience takes all of the secondary elements of hunting – hiking, enjoying nature, skillfully approaching your prey – and distills it down to just the waiting.

But what Deer Hunter manages to do very well is simplify the process. You’re taking half a day and condensing it down to 15 lazy minutes. For most of the 90s and 2000s, Windows’ Solitaire was my choice when I was too bored for anything else, or had around 10 minutes to kill. Since Deer Hunter runs without the CD, I could see this filling the role – popping in to see if I can quickly bag a pointy-er buck. If I didn’t, no biggie. I think that’s exactly the role Sunstorm intended, and from that perspective, Deer Hunter fills its role well.

I don’t think anyone really knows why Deer Hunter was the breakout success of the value bin. By all accounts I’ve read, Trophy Bass 2 was leagues better at cyber fishing than Deer Hunter was at cyber hunting. Was it because Sierra charged an extra $10 for Trophy Bass? Are there more hunters than fishers? But after downing maybe 30 bucks and wasting hours looking for more, I would say Deer Hunter deserves its success. It’s a little too obtuse at times. It definitely feels like a game made in three months. But it looks great, is certainly accessible, and offers the kind of simple gameplay that mobile games would capitalize on decades later. Plenty of room for improvement, but wasn’t a bad deal at its value price.

 

The Good

Literally photorealistic graphics (well, blurry 90’s digital photos). Decent first attempt at covering some of the strategy of hunting. Define your own difficulty by the equipment and locations you pick.

 

The Bad

Can’t move in first person. Instead, have to use a disconnected map screen to pick random spots to search – this feels especially boring. Nothing changes about the game, except maybe your skill. Only partially works on modern Windows with graphical glitches – you’ll need a real or virtual Win95 machine to play.

 

Looks like 12 or more points on that monster!”