Wed 4 May 2005 - The virtual deer hunter
I hadn’t noticed this before: you can now get a deerhunting game for the XBox. Obviously there have been 1st person shooter (FPS to those in the know) games for quite a while now, usually despatching alien monsters or WW2 German guards into the afterlife, but this is the first time I recall seeing a modern-day video game based on blowing away animals.
There have been various cruelty to animals games before, all the way back to Whack-a-mole and those arcade ducks, but video games are more realistic than ever before. Apparently this one actually features you hunting 9 different deer species, including exotic and rare deer. I wonder what PETA think of this? On the one hand maybe it’s better for the hunters to be killing pretend deer, but on the other hand, is it glorifying hunting, and encouraging more people to take it up?
I wonder, is it Game Over or do you at least lose points if you accidentally shoot another hunter? Do you have to avoid others’ bullets without shooting back? Can you opt for your character to wear a bright orange safety vest? What next… a fox hunt game perhaps?
I think I’ll stick to alien monsters.