

It's streamlined - there's no heart rate tech used here - but it runs smoothly and makes for good score challenges. Mechanically, though, the shooting gallery works well. Here the controls are cleaner, because you don't move manually and enemies take fewer shots, though I question whether it's fair to call them enemies since most of the time they run away while you shoot them - you don't defend yourself like in the story mode, apart from the occasional wolf or tiger that rushes the screen, so there's less context and justification for shooting them. But the "shooting gallery" mode avoids most of them by breaking the game into on-rails segments. Maneater, a co-op mode where you fight enemy waves, struggles with many of the same control problems. Every time I did it, it reminded me of the strange D-pad placement and took me out of the experience. In other ways, it's confusing, like how you grab health packs and ammo pick-ups by walking over them, but grab collectible antlers by walking over them and pressing down on the D-pad. The game seems to take this into account in some ways, since you rarely need to jump when there are enemies around, so your hands don't need to be in two places at the same time. And it doesn't help that the heart rate functionality isn't necessary - you never need to use it, and the game is very easy on its default difficulty setting, where you can often just run past enemies.Ĭomplicating things further, to jump or reload you need to use the D-pad, which is located on top of the gun barrel - and requires those of us without pro-athlete hands to awkwardly change hand positions to press. But it's caught in a Catch-22 where the more it shows off its key feature, the less comfortable it is to play. The game compensates for this by limiting the number of scenarios where it recommends you use the heart rate, and providing lots of breaks over the course of the story mode.

Easy enough to do, but it's a slightly uncomfortable arm position that becomes more uncomfortable the longer you hold it. This is where the "moist hands" come in, since the game has trouble reading a player's pulse if they have particularly dry hands. For the Fearmaster to read your heart rate, you need to place your hands on two silver panels on the gun - one behind the trigger, and the other under the barrel. The more Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 shows off its key feature, the less comfortable it is to playĬabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013's interface is the problem. When you approach an enemy from a distance, you can take your time, zoom in by breathing carefully, and see vital spots on animals to kill them each in one shot. You can easily bump the heart rate meter up and down by running in place or holding your breath, and the steady shot concept plays well with the idea that the gun reads your fear level. This all works so well that it initially seems like a great concept to base an entire game around. And second as an extension of a basic feature included in most modern shooters, where if you aim carefully your shots will deliver more damage than if you spray your reticule around the screen - here you get a bonus for keeping a "steady shot." In practical terms, this works in two ways - first, as an on-screen heart rate meter that shows up when you zoom-in with certain guns, which gives you a bonus zoom if you can keep the number low enough. And then the game mixes that data with how much you shake the gun. The big new idea this time around is that the game reads your heart rate through two sensors on the Fearmaster - thus its name - similar to indie horror game Nevermind or what Nintendo was planning with its Wii Vitality Sensor. It's a 3D shooter where you move with an analog stick on the back of the gun, and aim the gun to turn, which takes a bit of practice if you haven't used those controls before.
#Cabela's dangerous hunts 2013 for mac series#
You move on.Īs this year's "action" entry in the long running Cabela's hunting series - the "strategy" one being Cabela's Hunting Expeditions - Dangerous Hunts 2013 centers around a story mode where you run through various locations fending off lots of angry wild animals.
