Dusty But Trusty: Deer Hunter 2005

To qualify for a Dusty But Trusty article, a game must be old enough to vote in Nicaragua, buy tobacco in Djibouti, and make the beast with two backs in Nepal. More importantly, it must be demonstrably super, smashing, great, ace, wizard, bonzer, the knees of the bee, the testicles of the dog, and the whiskers and pyjamas of the cat. You don’t need rose-tinted pince-nez or a cutting-edge pixel pump to enjoy 24 karat golden oldies like… Deer Hunter 2005.

Every Cornerite will have potted Axis warplanes and Axis AFVs during their gaming career, but how many of you have also potted Axis deer I wonder. Axis axis is one of the five species of ungulate that brave crosshairs in the last and finest deer-only DH release: Deer Hunter: The 2005 Season.

By 2004, the year DH2005 hit shelves, Brazilian developer Southlogic Studios was a dab hand at making hunting sims. The proprietary Aspen engine that does such a fine job of evoking the Black Forest, the Australian savannah, and rural Georgia, Illinois, Oregon, and Utah, in DH2005, had already impressed indoor outdoorsmen in DH2004 and Trophy Hunter 2003.

Even today, when larger, more verdant stalking spaces are readily available, I still love tramping Georgia’s pine straw, and pushing my way through Illinois’s leafy hollows. I still relish going walkabout amongst the game’s termite mounds, windblown conifers, and autumn’s glory. There’s something about the way Southlogic’s muted colour palette, feathery foliage, and ambient sounds, bring to mind the real rural spaces I know and love, that draws me back time and time again.

By rights the gauche lighting, the relatively sparse vegetation, and the – by today’s standards – shortish view distances, should play merry hell with DH2005’s illusion peddling efforts, yet somehow they don’t. Despite their malign influence I can smell the crushed herbage and the rotting leaves, I can sense the breeze on my face and feel life’s tribulations drifting away like thistledown on the wind.

Not that I fire-up DH2005 from time to time solely for its therapeutic qualities or atmosphere. This game remains a favourite of armchair antler rattlers the world over largely because it sims its subject matter uncommonly well.

Appropriately shy and skittish, Southlogic’s bucks, does, and fawns are about as cervine as digital deer get. From little things like idle animations and pelt colours, to more consequential stuff like antler variety, seasonal behaviours, and diurnal activity patterns, the Brazilians went to great lengths to make their bambis believable.

The sim’s Roe, Axis, Whitetails, Blacktails, and Mulies behave differently depending on the weather, time of day, and season. Because behaviours like dueling, and rub and scrape creation are brief and/or seasonal, if you are lucky enough to glimpse them, you feel privileged.

More often than not the systematic DH2005 player will scout before reaching for their rifle or bow. In weaponless scouting mode, you wander maps looking for signs of deer activity, then, with future hunts in mind, create advantageous ambush spots using feeders and deployable stands and blinds. While prey isn’t completely predictable, if, during a preparatory pre-amble, you notice a herd feeding in a particular place at a particular time, returning the following day to the same vicinity at roughly the same hour, probably isn’t a bad idea. With the help of a pre-erected tree stand or hide, you might just get close enough for that bow shot.

As in other hunting sims, DH2005’s selectable difficulty settings (three in this case) aren’t the only way of modulating challenge. Assuming they remain downwind of their quarry, keep low, and move slowly, any oaf can drop a DH2005 deer with a scoped rifle. However, it takes real determination, patience, and skill to get results at closer ranges a la Robin Hood…

or Natty Bumppo…

As I’ve argued on previous occasions, to veto unshamedly asymmetric sims like DH2005 on the basis that they’re peril-free and ‘unsporting’, is to ignore crucial aspects of the genre. In rigorous recreations such as this, worthy targets are as rare as turkey’s teeth, and successful players, unusually patient, vigilant individuals. What no screenshot and few let’s plays reveal are the lengthy hikes between encounters, and the long hours spent optimistically scanning misty horizons with binoculars.

The tank or combat flight simmer might live with ever-present ersatz danger, but the DH2005 veteran hunts knowing one lapse of concentration, or ballistic or tactical miscalculation could lead to one of the cruelest experiences in all of Simulatia – the disappearance of a unique, wounded or spooked record breaker. Tracking a winged prize across open ground usually isn’t that hard, but in denser areas, finding the final resting place of a holed stag sometimes demands Sherlockian perspicacity.

Although Southlogic had no interest in storytelling or moralising, they had a half-harted stab at discouraging irresponsible hunting practices. Exceed the bag limit and your kills don’t appear in the trophy room or contribute to your character’s largely meaningless experience level. Slaying wildlife other than deer is generally permitted, but as the game’s incorporeal statistician and taxidermist refuses to handle critters like hares, turkeys, and wallaroos, unless you’re house-ruling a wilderness survival situation, there’s little point in topping them.

Do I feel slightly guilty recommending a game in which platypusicide always goes unpunished? Yes, I do.

No-nonsense Deer Hunter 2005 is long overdue an Indian summer. Assuming it still owns the rights, Atari would have little to do to ready it for re-release. While v1.2 seems to run flawlessly on modern PCs, the lack of widescreen support means players may have to put up with slightly stretched graphics. A conscientious re-publisher would add support for those missing resolutions, extend view distances a smidgen, and maybe even include a selection of the best community-made maps in any new version.