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I’m not a sportsman or hunter or survivalist and I know basically nothing about hunting. Honestly, unless it’s for survival or to defend myself, I don’t think I could willingly kill an animal. I am, of course, only referring to real life. But in a video game, all restrictions are lifted and principles thrown out the window. Give me a gun and put me in the wilderness and I’ll put every animal down without hesitation. To Hell with the woodland creatures, I say. Escapism is good stuff. I recently came to the realization I’ve never played a hunting game. I think the Wii is a great system for light gun style games and as it happens, many hunting games feature light gun style gameplay so I figured it’s time to give one a shot. I know the Cabela’s games are popular or at least, there’s a ton of them out there, but I recently became aware of the Remington Super Slam Hunting games and decided to start with them.
Developed by Kouyousha and published by Mastiff, Remington Super Slam Hunting: North America was released for Wii in 2010. Mastiff is the same company that brought us Reload, a target shooter for Wii and PC and I really enjoyed it. They also released Remington Great American Bird Hunt which precedes the Super Slam Hunting games. I would have started there but I don’t want to kill just birds. I want to be responsible for the mass extinction of numerous species.
Remington Super Slam Hunting: North America is very much an arcade style shooting gallery type of game. Unless I’m extremely ignorant and have missed all the Deer made out of pure gold running around the country, this is certainly not a realistic hunting experience. You remain stationary and the game will move or turn your character automatically at certain points. All you have to do is aim, shoot, and reload. You shoot animals for points and the key to scoring a lot of points is chains, or in other words, killing multiple animals in succession. Every time you perform a chain, your Hunter Vision meter increases and once full, you can activate Hunter Vision which temporarily slows down time, making animals easier to shoot. This is a light gun style game and does support up to four players. It comes with multiple game modes including Co-op and Versus but for this review, I was only able to check out the single player portion and I did play using the Wii Zapper.
You start by creating your hunter or profile and can design an emblem. Then you can begin hunting in tournaments. There is no plot or narrative. There are multiple tournaments to participate in, each set in a different location around North America. Every tournament consists of five rounds and the objective is to score as many points as possible for medals. You need to earn at least a bronze medal in each round to progress. Each round also comes with its own requirements for you to meet like killing a specific number of animals, achieving a certain number of long shots, you may have limited ammo, and other things along those lines. Before a round begins, you must complete the Deer Call minigame to dictate the amount of Golden Deer that will be summoned during the round and killing them rewards you with bonus points.
There are numerous animals to kill including deer, sheep, elk, goats, caribou, squirrels, birds, and more. You earn different amounts of points for different types of shots – skill shots if you will. These include long shots and vital shots like hitting the head, heart, or lungs which will result in an instant kill. You can also acquire bonus items during a round by shooting animals with icons over their heads. Glasses will let you see the animals better, the ammo bonus increases your magazine capacity, a quick shot bonus doubles your shooting and reload speed, and a camo bonus will temporarily increase the amount of points earned from shots. You can also unlock bonus weapons like different rifles and shotguns during a round. Shooting an animal with a bonus weapon icon above its head simply upgrades your default weapon to whatever the bonus weapon is.
While the game does make killing innocent defenseless creatures fun, you do need to be mindful of dangerous animals or predators that appear from time to time and come after you. These include wolves, bears, and mountain lions, among some others. You are also penalized for killing certain animals like females. Accompanying the action is an announcer who typically shouts encouraging things. He’s a “way to go, champ!” type of guy and he always sounds very enthusiastic. This is the second light gun style game published by Mastiff that I’ve played now and I have to say I’m becoming fan. Just like Reload, I do not consider Remington Super Slam Hunting: North America to be Wii shovelware. It’s certainly not a game with amazing production values nor is it one of the best light gun style games available for the system, but it is fun and accessible and I found it to be very entertaining. I would even say relaxing to a certain degree. It’s not super intense so you can easily sit back and turn your brain off and have a good time blowing away animals and racking up points. It’s a simple but fun arcade shooting gallery and it’s probably even more enjoyable if you have some buddies to play with.
Super Slam North America is a simple game and should appeal to anyone that likes light gun style gameplay. I have a feeling it was designed to appeal more to hunters and those that don’t play many video games because it’s not too hard, doesn’t require too much from the player, and it’s easy to pick up and play. There is something addictive about it. It has a unique charm and personality. Getting through the tournaments isn’t super difficult, although I found the final tournament to be noticeably more challenging than those that came before it. Up until then I was pretty much able to ignore the round requirements because I would meet them all without really trying. But the final tournament actually made me pay attention. Still, it’s a pretty easy game to get through and you should be able to get through all the tournaments in a single sitting. However, earning all gold medals will require some effort and that’s where much of the replay value comes from, trying for better scores and medals. That and the multiplayer. You can earn badges or whatever they are along with trophies which are acquired by killing specific animals, and these will be displayed in your profile.
If I have any complaints with the game, it’s that the visual presentation leaves a lot to be desired and the gunplay isn’t anything special. The guns sound okay at best and have subpar to average visual feedback and it would be more of a problem if this wasn’t a light gun style game. Being able to shoot at the TV kind of makes up for it and seeing the animals go down is satisfying. The environments are distinct enough and do pass for North American locales, complete with different weather effects, but I can’t say there’s anything about the visual presentation that really wowed me. The game is accompanied by what I’m going to call a bluegrass soundtrack with more intense tunes that kick in whenever dangerous animals appear and while this genre of music isn’t typically my cup of tea, it does fit the game and, I admit, some of the tunes are catchy. In fact, I think the music is what really gives this game its charm. On the technical side, the game did run pretty smooth in my experience and I encountered no major issues. I feel I should mention I did play this on a Wii U.
I had a lot of fun with Remington Super Slam Hunting: North America. I went into it expecting arcade style gameplay with low production values and that’s what I got but I found it more enjoyable than I actually thought it would be. There’s just something addictive about it that kept me coming back. Honestly, I’d still rather shoot bad guys, aliens, monsters, and robots over animals but I love the light gun genre and considering there aren’t as many light gun style games as there are other types of shooters, I’ll take what I can get. In the end, it’s not so much the animals that makes this fun, it’s the gameplay. It’s easy to pick up and play, smooth, addictive, and satisfying. You could replace the animals with anything else and I think it would still be just as fun. I know little to nothing about actual hunting but as a hunting game, it clearly doesn’t lean too far into realism. It’s very much an arcade style experience and I think that’s also part of what makes it so enjoyable. Anyone can pop this in, easily understand and get a hang of the mechanics and gameplay, and have fun. You don’t have to do much other than aim, shoot, and reload.
I absolutely recommend Remington Super Slam Hunting: North America. If you’re looking for a hunting simulator, this might not do it for you but if you’re looking for an arcade style light gun type of shooter, this should fit the bill. I would recommend this to pretty much everybody because anyone can pick this up and have a good time. You don’t need to know anything about hunting to enjoy it. It’s fun, accessible, and will keep you coming back. Definitely check it out.