Huntin' 3

The reviews on this site are the text versions of the videos on my YouTube channel. The text based reviews use (if at all) very little pictures. Please follow the link to the corresponding video in order to see in game graphics.

Huntin' 3 was made in 2005 by Radica, together with V-TAC technologies. The game was released as part of Radica's play TV series of plug and play systems. I reviewed the first Huntin' system in episode 86 and its successor in episode 92. I will refer to the latter quite a bit, because Huntin'3 is in many ways just an updated port of the same game onto different hardware. This episode tries to point out differences between the third and second entry while keeping repetitions at a minimum.

The gun is considerably bigger than its predecessors. Nevertheless to ease up storage a piece of the stock and the barrel can be removed. Similar as with the Jakks Pacific rifles removal of the stock piece requires lots of force and degrades the plastic. Just as it was with the Huntin'2 rifle the plastic at the stock is textured to make it more wood like looking. Sadly this time something went wrong when the black pigments were added. The final result doesn't look like wood grain, but like a grimy, dirty surface. The sight picture is still made of two circles, which works very well in the game. This time the force feedback is much less intense while surprisingly being much louder. Like the guns before the system is powered by four AA batteries or via a power supply unit connected to a DC barrel socket. Button placement and quality remains unchanged.

As said before this third installment is very similar to the second. Radica stopped working with Xavix and ported the second game to the V-TAC hardware. A notable difference is the complete removal of Buckmasters branding. As a consequence Jackie Bushman, the former face of the game, is absent in this installment. Instead of him an unnamed hunter drawn in cartoon style gives advices and instructions. The whole game got more cartoon like. This is most notable during close ups with animals. Especially the bear looks less realistic. Another difference of Huntin' 3 to its predecessor is that the hunting season relative to the state of rut can't be selected anymore. The rest of the changes are less noticeable. The message displayed when a cow is shot is less negative than before. Furthermore shooting animals from behind isn't considered to be unethical anymore.

When reviewing Huntin' 2 I said that the so called grand slam mode which takes place on multiple locations was broken due to a bug. This was wrong. In grand slam mode once a deer is shot the level selection screen reappears offering the remaining levels. This works the same way for both Huntin' 2 and Huntin'3.

Personally I like Huntin'3. It's a fun game and well presented. I enjoy the first entry to the series the most, but as for its rarity I can see why people would go with the second or third installment instead. Of the latter two games I don't have a favorite. Both are nice and I think the decision should come down to whether the player likes cartoon esthetics or realism more. Having both entries would be somewhat redundant.

The packaging for Huntin'3 is very similar to the one of Huntin'2. The same pathetic TV with just two RCA sockets is shown. This time the fraudulent graphics shown on the screen are even more hilarious, as the game uses cartoon animals rather than photorealistic models.