Target practice with a mouse

As a poor shot, I figured “Hunting Unlimited 2” would shore up my slayer credentials, if only on a computer game. But it turned out I was fresh meat more often than the digitized animals.

The game’s many modes provide for equal-opportunity death. I was trampled by bison, unable to stop a charging grizzly with a bow and arrow and died trying to reach a goat carcass.

Like hunting, the game mixes the calm of walking through outdoor scenery with real adrenaline. With face pressed near the screen and heart thumping, I waited for a nighttime grizzly attack. I was firing wildly into the dark -- just how I imagine the real thing might play out, only with unlimited ammo and lives.

Emmett Berg