Duck Season

 PC
User Score
6.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 12 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 12
  3. Negative: 3 out of 12

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  1. plotlesviolence
    Apr 2, 2023
    9
    I'm not usually a fan of horror games or movies, but I wanted to comment on this little-known gem because it's the most effective creation of horror I've ever seen. You could say that the gameplay is "basic," and I get why it's not for everyone. But it's also the only videogame that has ever scared me, and it's because of how brilliantly it does horror.

    Duck Season is essentially a    I'm not usually a fan of horror games or movies, but I wanted to comment on this little-known gem because it's the most effective creation of horror I've ever seen. You could say that the gameplay is "basic," and I get why it's not for everyone. But it's also the only videogame that has ever scared me, and it's because of how brilliantly it does horror.

    Duck Season is essentially a simulation of being a 10-year-old kid in the 1980s playing a Duck Hunt ripoff. And then things slowly get weird. It was made by the same team that would later do Boneworks.

    There are 3 things that make the horror truly scary:

    1) VR is great for horror in general. The sense of presence you get from having the outside world blocked out by the headset, the immersion from 3D stereoscopic images, the ability to turn your head, the groping of your hands around an environment instead of the usual button-to-action separation of traditional controllers. Everything feels much more real. In flatscreen, enemies that get closer just get larger. In VR, they FEEL closer. My scariest moment was where one night you saw footage on the TV in the game of the outside of the house, and slowly I began to recognize that it was my house, and then it panned to my character, in real time, and I whipped my head to the right in time to see the bad guy pointing a camera at me before he vanished; it felt completely natural and very creepy.

    2) The game creates a convincing representation of a messy 1980s living room centered around an NES with a gun attachment, littered with cassettes (minigames) and toys, with mom in the background doing adult stuff. The TV plays frequent live-action 80s-style commercials. It's not my living room, but having lived this era as a kid it feels like they absolutely captured it. The game-within-a-game is a VR remake of 1984 Duck Hunt, complete with nice touches like being able to look behind you to see the the child avatar mimicking your movements through a giant tv screen. The point of all this sense of presence is that, while it's lulling me into a sense of complacency about a simple minigame, it's also taking me back to my childhood, when I was most vulnerable and prone to nightmares and fears. It sets up the rest of the scares really well.

    3) Finally, and this is the most SPOILER-y part and what makes the game unique even among VR games: All the rest of the horror stuff happens because.......................................
    .................................................................................................................because you shoot the dog. It's actually a man in an obvious dog costume, and if you follow the clues from multiple replays it's obvious that it's actually your estranged father, who put on the costume to try to reconnect with his family. But what makes this interesting is that the game NEVER FORCES any of it. If you want, you can even NOT shoot the dog, and the game has one of the "good" endings. But it's Duck Hunt, and you always wanted to shoot the dog and Duck Hunt never let you. So of course when you see the Duck Season, you want to know what happens when you shoot the him, and he ragdolls about and it's funny. THEN all the creepy stuff begins to happen, and it becomes so much worse because you carry this undercurrent of GUILT because you know you did this, by shooting him for no reason, like you DESERVE what's coming, because you HAD a CHOICE, and that makes the fear all the more powerful.    … Expand
  2. Cz3rw0ny
    Feb 14, 2021
    7
    Interesting game, roughly 1h to complete. It has some bugs tho, for me I couldn't really reload the rifle, hence had to play on easy. Kind of a bummer, but generally speaking fun, short game. The horror part was pretty scary.
  3. MrIslamic
    May 8, 2021
    3
    One of the most overrated games I have played. I was really excited to play after hearing so much, it fails as a horror game, and as a game in general, it is not scary (except for the ending but you can't excuse a bad game by saying the ending is good) and it's not fun at all, it is padded out way too much. After shooting all those ducks I don't feel compelled at all to get any of theOne of the most overrated games I have played. I was really excited to play after hearing so much, it fails as a horror game, and as a game in general, it is not scary (except for the ending but you can't excuse a bad game by saying the ending is good) and it's not fun at all, it is padded out way too much. After shooting all those ducks I don't feel compelled at all to get any of the other endings. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY.… Expand
  4. Seba1906
    Feb 10, 2023
    8
    Very creepy game, tricking you into thinking that it's all fun. And it is.....if you dont shoot the dog.
  5. asdgasgea
    May 13, 2023
    9
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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
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No score yet - based on 2 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. GMW3
    Sep 18, 2017
    80
    Duck Season really is a mixed bag of ideas, trying to build out a core experience that’s reasonably solid, it just didn’t have enough variety to be a sole title in its own right. Stress Level Zero’s additions are really just padding, stretching out the replay factor with seven different endings may only encourage a small number of users to keep going back. Duck Season does have a charm all of its own though, making for a perfectly enjoyable experience.
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  2. UploadVR
    Sep 18, 2017
    80
    Duck Season is more than a tribute to a beloved retro game; it’s a love letter to an entire era of pop culture and childhoods well-spent on a healthy dose of screen watching. As a showcase for VR it does a brilliant job of highlighting the tech’s current strengths with small, intimate environments that breathe authenticity and organic storytelling that never pulls you from the experience. I can’t wait to see how Stress Level Zero applies what it’s learned here to something that pushes the medium even further.
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