We’ve all wondered what happens in the darkest timeline of Nintendo’s Duck Hunt. You know the one I’m talking about. The one where that sadistic, mocking dog continues to laugh in your face for all eternity, as the ducks descend upon you and take over the world. In a nutshell, that’s probably the way the conversation went in the meeting room that devised the wondrous world of Duckpocalypse.
If you can watch the above trailer without at least smiling, or flat out belly-laughing like I did, then you should reevaluate your sense of humor. The rocking 8-bit soundtrack, retro visuals, and wonderfully over-the-top explosions and dudebro voices are more than enough to warrant any sane human’s $3.
Just do me a favor and read this description:
“In the future, intelligent robot ducks have become smarter than humans, they took our jobs while we were busy fighting nuclear wars with each other. Few of us remained to see what is known today as the “Duckpocalypse“. As an enraged simple human mind, you manage to build two guns with the scrap you gathered from an annoying robot duck, and so this is how your duck hunt starts!”
You can’t make this up. Luckily, the game surrounding this marketing barrage of amazingness is also really, really fun. Obviously, it’s incredibly simple, but the charming sense of humor and relentlessly hilarious aesthetic sell it more than anything. Certainly more engaging than a lot of similarly designed, more expensive VR games.
We’d like to see a bit more meat on this duck’s bones though, ideally. It could really benefit from online leaderboards, a few more game modes, or at least a couple more maps, but currently the core gameplay is rock solid. You’re standing in a shack and you have 90 seconds to shoot as many ducks as possible. You’ll see explosive red barrels, robots, and all manner of other objects in your path. Once the time runs out, you’re overrun in a fiery blaze of glory with your total score shown onscreen.
That’s it, but it’s a lot of fun to pass around with friends. Good luck getting through a handful of rounds without your fingers cramping up though. It gets pretty intense.
Nintendo may or may not be incorporating VR into its upcoming NX console, but one thing is certain: if they do, there better be a Duck Hunt VR game in the works. If not, I’m fairly certain people will riot.
In the meantime, you can enjoy a duck hunt of your own with Duckpocalypse, now available on Steam for HTC Vive at a price point of just $2.99.
