Ultimate Duck Hunting

Ultimate Duck Hunting
Developer(s) Mid Carolina Media
Publisher(s) Mid Carolina Media (PC)
Detn8 Games (Wii)
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, Wii
Release May 2, 2006 (PC)
October 19, 2007 (Wii)
Genre(s) Sports game
Mode(s) Single player, Multiplayer

Ultimate Duck Hunting is a duck hunting video game developed by Mid Carolina Media for the PC. The goal of the game is to shoot ducks and then collect them with hunting dogs, a concept similar to that of the classic NES game, Duck Hunt. On October 19, 2007 a Nintendo Wii version was released by publisher Detn8, it was originally planned for release on July 10, 2007, but it was delayed to October due to the E3 announcement of the Wii port.

Production values

The second game from publisher Mid Carolina Media is often criticized on its own forums for low production values, many of which contradict the self-quoted title of "the most realistic duck hunting game ever made" on its cover. Many of the common criticisms include:

Critical reception

Ultimate Duck Hunting reception
Review score
PublicationScore
PCWii
GameTrailers3.2[1]3.2[1]
Aggregate scores
GameRankings43.33%[2]22.25%[3]
MetacriticN/A28/100[4]

Despite the game box's assurances that Ultimate Duck Hunting is "the most realistic duck-hunting game ever made", it has earned harsh criticisms both based on the game itself and the professionalism shown by its publisher.

Perhaps the most popular and cited feedback came from GameTrailers.com's Rob, whose stick figure persona actually hanged himself as a result of playing Ultimate Duck Hunting, which coined the term "suicide review". Over the course of GameTrailers' review,[1] the late Rob delivers a laundry list of problems with the game. He criticizes the intelligence of the dogs used to retrieve fallen ducks and the repetitive dullness of the training process required to raise said intelligence. He likewise comments on the difficulty of finding anyone online to share the multiplayer mode with by showing a completely empty lobby. At one point, he ridicules the graphics of the allegedly "most realistic duck hunting game ever made" by presenting footage of a dog with brush poking through its body (a common symptom of low production values in videogames).

Marketing failure

Mid Carolina Media created a series of commercials for the game featuring a man choosing between women in lingerie and the game itself. They each open with the man sitting on a large bed loading the game with his laptop. A woman (not always the same woman) wearing revealing neglige enters the room and tries to pull him away from the game. These commercials feature more footage of the women than the game itself, though the man always chooses the game in the end. This attempt at marketing has not been very successful, however, as YouTube reports significantly more hits for the "suicide review" video bashing the game instead (see above). The videos can be found here. (age restricted)

References

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