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A quick and appropriate admission, I’m absolutely not someone who does or likely ever would enjoy hunting. The thought of killing much of anything, short of it being absolutely necessary to my immediate survival, is pretty abhorrent to me. That said, since I currently live in a rural area where the schools let kids off for the first day of hunting season it’s something I have a fair appreciation for at least indirectly. Without the ability to evaluate authenticity directly with Hunting Simulator 2 I’ll keep it simpler and relay the experience of playing it, letting you then decide whether that meets what you may be looking for. At the beginning things are definitely a bit slow as you become accustomed to how best do things like track animals and set yourself up with the proper equipment and technique to maximize your chances for success. Your trusty initial hound may be eager to succeed but simply trusting in his nose early on can be a mistake so you’ll want to get good at looking for the visual cues that indicate you’ve heard animal sounds in the distance or simply seeing the glint of the tracks on the ground. This needing to get oriented will initially burn some time, but that will also allow you to explore your hunting ground, finding places to make camp, elevated blinds to perch in, or setting markers where you find animal tracks to return to later. As I would imagine true hunting would be as well, patience is absolutely a big part of being successful so you’ll want and need to take your time, periodically stop to take things in, and then try to set up a good position to shoot from when you sight an animal rather than simply begin trying to shoot the moment you see an animal. It is by no means perfect, and you can do quite a lot of aimless meandering around the woods with little to nothing to show for it, but at the same time there’s a relaxing quality even to exploring the virtual landscape while taking on the challenge of bagging one of quite an impressive number of animals featured in the game.
Justin Nation, Score:Good [7.1]