The motion controls make this an enjoyable hunter.
(-) Graphics are pretty blurry; the hunter's sense controls your hunter more than you do; not a lot of challenge; the 12 missions only take around three hours to beat first time
Cabela's Big Game Hunter is a first person hunting game where you travel through certain parts of the United States with hunting tags to hunt down some game for a person known as The Order. Cabelas as a hunting company have designed these games for years to give some hunting enthusiasts a thrilling experience for their trade, but making the experience true to the real procedure and fun in a video game at the same time is a challenging task, and 2010 turns out to be a fairly enjoyable game but none that could possibly break this pattern.
You have 12 missions where you are told to hunt various game such as deer, elk, ram, bears, birds, rabbits, and more. You scope yourself through the forest using your hunter sense, which I think makes the game a bit too easy. Most mainstream hunts involve spotting your target, and hiding away to plan your shoot, using your scope to aim for the vital organs. What's interesting is how the game will give you bonus points based one where you shoot the animal, which adds some strategy. For example, shooting the heart will award you the maximum amount of bonus points, but shooting the head will deduct from your score. Along the way you have a mix of casual mini-games shooting birds, rabbits, and other small animals through a time limit. Some of these are here just for target practice, while others are mandatory, but people who have played any shooting orientated on the Wii will already be fairly familiar with this challenge.
Throughout your hunting adventure you'll encounter some interactive elements. For example, sometimes you'll need to balance the Wii remote to walk across a log leading to a cliff. But other times the log will fall, and result in you hanging across the wall of the cliff. Here you must button mash one button at a time, about four times, to climb up the cliff. This can be difficult weirdly because it doesn't give you much involvement, and could be made more fun and enjoyable if there was a sequence of different buttons to press instead.
However the addition of hunter sense, which detects the direction you need to move with a yellow light and hazards that could alarm animals with noise a red light, can lead you toward your way to victory and make the game overly easy. IGN called the hunter sense "the equivalent of pressing the 'win' button" and its easy to see why. So its almost given that you'll trudge through the twelve hunts with little trouble, and save for a difficult final "boss" where you hunt one of three fierce mountain lions, the game is pretty easy and could be beaten in one extended sitting.
There are also 12 shooting galleries, that is 5 more than the PS3 and XBOX 360 version because this game has a distinct feel like it was made more suitable for the Wii. You have a two minute time limit to see how many small animals you can shoot with the remote, which is more enjoyable than the hassle of an analog stick I imagine. The most enjoyable in my opinion are the views in the air or horizon where you shoot birds or ducks, while there are also ground animals like rabbits and foxes but can hide behind things. Every single consecutive hit will give you combo bonus points, and you can land high scores, which requires some pin-point accuracy and speed to accomplish. There are also dangerous galleries with in-coming animals like bears and coyotes, which you must shoot them before they hit the screen, more like an endurance challenge instead of a time limit. These shooting galleries have animals that run in a similar pattern each time, which while this may sound like lazy programming, they still seem to be addicting and entertaining. You can also immensely improve your coordination, namely with the Wii remote, by investing time in these mini-games. But other than that the game doesn't have much more to offer unless you want to get the gold medals in all your previous hunts.
The controls are easily the biggest victory achieved in Big Game Hunter 2010 on the Wii. It's easy to assume, you move your hunter with the nun-chuck and point and shoot with the Wii remote. These controls are efficient, and also pretty realistic which make for a satisfying gaming experience. The pointer controls are also responsive, shooting rightfully and never hiccuping like in other third party hunting game on the Wii. The hunts, especially the shooting galleries, feel more at home with the Wii than the PS3 or XBOX 360, which those players still must stick to buttons and analog sticks to make their shots, which really decreases the amount of involvement.
The graphics could have been tuned up more even if you consider the Wii's hardware limitations. The forests look blurry and the animals also lack significant detail. It can be difficult at times to walk through the path due to the blurry visuals. And even though the environments are blurry, and save for some restrictive paths with invisible walls, they are fairly wide open and large, which is responsible for a less-than-steady frame rate. Even worse, during the single player campaign when the frame rate has slowdown, the cursor slows down with it, which can drag the experience down pretty aggressively. Not to an unplayable level, but it does get in the way regardless. And there isn't much sound to speak of, just steps and shooting pretty much.
Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2010 is an alright game best played on the Wii platform due to the control scheme, but still feels lacking in variety. I discount used purchase may be a good idea rather than paying full price, as most of the lasting value revolve around the shooting galleries.