HUNTING SIMULATOR 2 (PS5) (PS4)

Very happy with the game fast delivery great game to get into.

Bon achat

Great looking game. But younger kids may find it boring, compared to Splatoon 😂

10 yr old grandson said it was so cool. Loved the dog accompanying him in the game. Right of the bat. He named it, "Bo".

After playing nearly 100 hours of theHunter: CotW on PC and getting fed up with the constant bugs, lackluster patchwork and relentless DLC greed, I was looking forward to this release and thought it was time to try out the competition. Hunting Simulator 2 is about ethical hunting, so you have to make sure you have the right gear for the right animal licenses for the right area and so forth. You will be penalized for using the wrong weapon on the wrong animal, or using the wrong caliber ammo, or gunning down an animal without the appropriate license, or leaving an animal carcass behind in an area, or carelessly spraying gunfire several times on your prey like some meathead. Even the quantity of your ammo is deliberately restricted, as if the game is saying, "Hey, this isn't Call of Duty, so smarten up." The game feels more focused as a result; you're being careful about how you plan your hunt, and it gives a strong sense of purpose every time you head out. It could be argued that, in comparison to theHunter, Hunting Sim 2 comes off a bit... simple. But I'd argue that simplicity gives it its own advantage. My favourite part of HS2 is the currency system. CotW would give you about 1,000-1,800 for kills and then charge upwards of 50,000 for a rifle--in HS2, bagging a moose is enough to net you a whole new gun! In theHunter, practically everything is monitized and all those little things quickly drain out your in-game finances, which meant two things: spending an inordinate amount of time grinding the hunt to gain back that money *and* being stuck with the same loadout for hours on end with no new gear. Sound like fun? Hunting Simulator 2 doesn't aggravate the player like that. You don't pay for your ammo, you don't pay to build permanent shooting stands on-map, you don't pay to rest and change time at your cabin, none of that. Surprisingly, there's no XP to earn, either; no character levels to gain or perks to unlock. Everything is there and ready for you right off the bat, so the game wastes none of your time with an excruciatingly slow grind. In that sense, HS2 works better as a video game than CotW does, because HS2 respects the player's time. The game offers three different types of hunting dog to assist you, and all three have different functions. One can swim into deep waters and retrieve, another is a silent pointer, etc. These hunting dogs are fun to use and the more you bond with them, the more their stats increase, such as stamina. The maps are reasonably (not ridiculously) big, there's lots of licensed gear, guns and items to buy, clothing that actually affects your visibility(!), and even a decent third-person view I find myself using quite often. Now, about the bugs. During my time in theHunter, I've seen animals stuck on geometry, roads disappear beneath the terrain, full herds frozen in time, animal footsteps overamplified, tracks suddenly disappearing, hard crashes, and having my entire map reset. So, imagine experiencing those bugs and playing for dozens and dozens of hours and putting in lots of time and effort unlocking this and that... to one day load up your save file and have portions of progress irreversibly wiped out. No joke. That's exactly what happened to me and many other players in CotW. (Read online reviews from seasoned players and you'll see I'm not exaggerating.) Players have been reporting bugs like these to Expansive Worlds for years now and--promises, promises--not only are almost none of these issues fixed (some of them years old at this point), but every new piece of DLC adds even *more* bugs! I became so fed up with them that I eventually gave up on the game entirely. But wouldn't you know it, none of those headaches are to be found in Hunting Simulator 2. I haven't had one bug so far, not one crash. Nothing. I'm almost dumbstruck that this game runs so well! Much thanks to Neopica for making sure their game wasn't released on PS5 in a horribly buggy state. Really, I'm impressed. So, what are the downsides? Well... I gotta be honest, the atmosphere in HS2 is nowhere as immersive as CotW. Small QOL things are missing: tree branches that move against your character and make brushing sounds off your clothing; dynamic weather changes, like morning fog; multi-zoom on gun optics; indicators for wind direction and foot sound. Things like that. (Neopica stated they were aiming for a more "organic" feel here.) One thing that really sucks is that there's no true iron-sight aiming--unless you're aiming with a scope, a small, circular reticle is stuck on your screen at all times. There is no option to manually chamber your rounds after every shot, which is a feature in CotW that I miss dearly. There are no tents you can carry, and no portable tree stands or portable hunting blinds either--they're all fixed on the map and you discover them instead. There's no smartphone/huntermate for tracking. There's no option to hunt at night whatsoever. Outside of the "Ranger's Life" DLC, there are no missions, side missions or human interaction, AI or otherwise. (I miss the charm of Colton Locke.) And for better or worse, depending on your preference, animals won't attack you and you can't take any fall damage. Ergo, your character can't die. Technically, the graphics are fine in 4K, but the animations do look amateurish. Sound design suffers a bit here, and its limitations become especially apparent with headphones; more attention needs to be paid to the impact of gunshots next time. The trailer advertised 60fps but, as of v1.002.000, that's a *generous* targeted 60 and tends to regulate around the 50 mark. Thankfully, after patching, none of the DLC content offered in the PlayStation Store shows up during gameplay as gated content, and everything works just fine offline without any internet connection required. SUMMARY - $30 CDN is a very fair price for the content on offer. You won't get the immersion level of theHunter, but happily you won't get the bugs either! Just temper your expectations a bit and give it some patience.