Field & Stream: T.O.C.
A demo review by Joel R.
So, I'm pretty sure you've never played Field & Stream magazine’s hunting game. Come to think of it, you've probably never played any hunting game because of one simple thing: hunting games suck. Not that the idea of a hunting is bad. The idea of wandering the woods and slaughtering wildlife is awesome! It's just that hunting games always do such a bad job at it.
So, the demo begins with one of the most awkward interfaces possible. Simply moving around is a freaking chore. Finally, I managed to get to the item select screen and once again, I was confused. I'm sure if I was really into hunting I'd give a damn about what rifle I bought or what the hell the difference is between different barrel lengths. But I'm not into hunting so I just chose the following random assortment of crap: a camo colored rifle, a hunting scope and just for fun, a poop shaped mystery item! (More on that later)
After this, the game plopped me down in some shitty looking grass facing a pond. I won't spend much time talking about the graphics since I'm pretty sure you all expected them to be terrible. Suffice to say, they didn't disappoint and did, in fact, look like crap.
I started moving around and it was then that I discovered how horrifyingly bad this game controls. Normally, I'd just try to describe the games slow movements or how imprecise the aim was, but no, this game simply out does itself at being complete crap. First of all, I play inverted, so when I went to the menu to switch over I discovered that the designers didn't think anyone would ever want to play this game inverted (or rather they thought nobody would ever play it at all) and decided not to include it. Oh well, I'll deal. Then I took my first step. The entire game screen shook and my controller began convulsing uncontrollably. I thought I was being attacked and looked around for any enemies, but there was nothing but the absurdly loud sounds of chirping birds. I took another step and the same thing happened: shaking screen and insanely long vibrating. I barely pressed the control stick down and was able to barely move with out the game freaking out. I'm guessing that the game wanted to simulate what hunting was really like, forcing you to creep along through the woods. Having never hunted, I can only assume this means that, in real life hunting, hunters can't move faster than a slow crawl or else they'll fall over and have an epileptic fit. So, I finally said screw it and just broke out into a shaky, spasm filled run.
Oh well, at least I get a gun I thought. I then began to wonder where my gun was. It was surprisingly absent from the screen. I began pressing buttons and realized that the game didn't really seem to care. Its as if the game got more annoyed than anything and finally, my gun appeared randomly. I'm still not sure what combination of button presses made it magically appear. So, now, with gun in hand I began walking through the shaky vision of my screen attempting to find some deer or something to kill.
The game was attempting to help me the best it could and suggested I use my “hunter vision.” Once turned on, I was able to “see smells.” Now, I was surprised to see this. Its as if the game was attempting to make up for the shitty controls with really boring super powers. Even worse was the fact that the only smell I could see was poop. Imagine having this super power, the power to see poop really well. I feel like it would only make your life worse.
So, there I go, shaking along, following glowing piles of crap and I see some fuzzy brown shapes in the distance. Holy crap, I've finally found some freaking deer! The game suggested that I use my deer call to bring them closer. Not that I needed to bring them closer. As soon as they heard me coming through the trees they promptly turned tail and became stuck in the nearest tree.
Look at this crap.
Now, remember that mystery poop shaped item? Apparently, it was a deer call. I began pressing all sorts of buttons again and magically, after pressing buttons for no less than a full minuet, the brown turd call appeared. It sounded like a dying duck. I mean, I've never heard a duck die, but after hearing the horrifying sounds of the deer call, I'm pretty sure that if a duck was dying, it would sound like that deer call. I'm serious, diarrhea sounds better than this deer call. Also, it didn't work! The deer were too busy being stuck in a tree to care about my horrible turd call.
So, I said screw it and figured I'd be an unsportsmanlike bastard and shoot their asses out of the trees. Then I discovered yet another terrible thing. Once you bring out your deer call, there's no going back. I'm serious, I sat there jamming buttons in vain, hoping to see my gun again. No suck luck. All I ended up doing was continue to spasm while the screen shook and the horrifying deer call squawked out its terrible noise over and over.
So, that is the image I leave you with. An epileptic hunter in the woods, jumping and spasming, blowing on a diarrhea deer call a foot away from digital deers stuck head first in some shitty looking trees.
