Free Web Site - Free Web Space and Site Hosting - Web Hosting - Internet Store and Ecommerce Solution Provider - High Speed Internet
Search the Web

TURKEY HUNT 3D
 Manufacturer: ValuSoft (1998)
 Price:  $19.99   
Genre: Wild turkey hunting simulation    
System Requirements:  Win95, Pentium 133 or faster, 16 MB RAM, Mouse, CD-ROM, Sound Card, Direct X, 50 MB HDD space, 3D accelerator card (Direct 3D or 3Dfx compliant).

  Turkey Hunt 3D is the latest bird hunting game to hit the market- and the first to be in 3D. After installing the game, players are given three start options: Direct 3D, 3Dfx and basic (non-accelerated). Choose the one best suited for your system (mine is Direct 3D). This is a nice option for those who may not have an accelerator card- yet.

The interface is pretty generic: Go Hunt, Visit the Trophy Room or Exit. The menu appears as the front porch of a cabin. Walking into the cabin takes you to the fully 3D trophy room where your toms are displayed. Very nice touch and the graphics are excellent. Choosing "Go Hunt" takes you to the various hunting options: gear, camouflage and hunting location. There are three distinct hunting locations woodland, lowland and desert. Weapon selection is the standard shotgun, muzzleloader and bow option. The camo options are geared towards each hunting area- just click on the camo cap (hanging from the cabin wall) best suited for you hunt. So far, so good.

Here's where things kind of fall apart for this game. Once you enter the hunting area you have complete movement in any direction- this is VERY cool. However, while the graphics are good, the tiling is horrible. "Boxes" appear around terrain items- trees, stumps and bushes which do not blend with the rest of the gradient shading. To make matters worse, you literally move at a crawl. Movement is so slow that it is almost painful- negating the game's advantage to move in any direction!! Considering that I was playing on a system well above the requirements, this was not good. Every action ground down into SSSSLLLLLOOOWWW motion: from raising and firing your weapon to the turkey's response. All this aside, the graphics are excellent for the most part- some of the best you'll find in a hunting game.

The turkey AI is also wanting. I blasted a tom about four times (after the initial miss) with the shotgun, only to have the bird slowly walk away (not run, not fly- but slowly walk away) until I finally got him. I expected the tom to fly off or at least run off without any follow-up shots. When I did get him, the graphic effect was pretty cool- i.e. flipping and flopping. The turkey graphics again are excellent- they looked as good as the real thing! Too bad they didn't act realistically.

Turkey Hunt 3D, while graphically awesome in many respects, left me a bit disappointed when it came to speed of play and realism. But it's still on my hard drive regardless.

THE SCOUTING REPORT:

THE PROS:

THE CONS:

Review by Steven Ellis