Welcome to our review of Big Buck Hunter Arcade, an arcade hunting game out now on Nintendo Switch.
The #1 Hunting Arcade Game in the world is now available for your console. Big Buck Hunter will bring the arcade experience to your living room with this fast-paced, addictive arcade shooter! The all-new control and aim mechanics will make this a must pick up and play arcade shooter experience. Travel around the globe and take down wild game in Whitetail and Moose adventures or try your aiming and speed skills in epic bonus challenges. Play alone or with a friend to compete for the highest score, or try to beat the numerous bonus challenges. The perfect game for the Big Buck hunter fan, with easy to pick up controls that still pack a challenge for experienced players.
Most of all, Big Buck Hunter Arcade is not a real hunting game, but one of those tacky games you find in arcades with real style guns that you can use to shoot down animals. As I do not have a lot of experience with this genre, I regret to say I had to compare it to a real hunting game called hunting simulator and boy, there are tons of differences.
Basically, you enter a 30 seconds round with several targets in the hunting field and according to your mission, you can shoot some but maybe not the others. This is the only real difficulty the game brings, being unable to just shoot at anything that moves. Hit that wrong target and you are done for the level.
As I played mostly in handheld, I have to say the controls do react well and while the game is not bad from the technical point of view, I did think it was kinda dumb. There is rarely a real challenge and those few times there is a bear or wildcat coming at you, a great shot does do the trick.
The biggest issue I had, comparing it to the Hunting Simulator game, that I also reviewed. Hunting Simulator was very realistic compared this Big Buck Hunter Arcade counterpart. In Big Buck Hunter Arcade you are presented with everything on a silver platter and you do not get to enjoy the actual hunt but just mindlessly shoot the right target.
In its core, Big Buck Hunter Arcade is more a joke game than anything real. At least it is to me. I was enjoying myself, but add in those incredibly long waiting times in between matches and you got a lot of mixed feelings. On one side, there are the highs of getting your second down in 1 single level, but on the other hand, so many things wrong with the game.
Those loading times also ruin your chance of a “quick game” when you are bored and that totally brings down the potential of this game. If it would load tons faster, it would even get a decent enough score, but for now, I doubt you will be surprised when you read the following conclusion.
To start my conclusion, I would once again like to say that Hunting Simulator is the best and most realistic experience on Nintendo Switch, but if you are looking for pure mowing down of animals, I guess this might be for you? I think it is a joke of a game and can not give it a passing grade.
