Fowl Play and Shoot'n Clay

Duck Hunt Review

Genre: Light Gun/Shooter
Number of Players: 1-2
Developer: Nintendo R&D1/Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo Co., Ltd
Release Date: April 21, 1984 (JP), October 18, 1985 (US), August 15, 1987 (EU)

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In 1988, I knew nothing about home video games. But that changed one day when my older brother was awarded a small sum of money for his 5th-grade scholastic achievements. And what was the best way most kids could have spent that money back then? Purchase a Nintendo Entertainment System Action Set, naturally.

One evening, my dad drove us around to what seemed like every Toys’ R Us store in the Baltimore area, trying to find one in stock. At the time, I was clueless about the reason for our frantic search and eventually fell asleep in the car. The next morning, I entered the living room to find my family gathered around the television, playing the NES much like the family depicted on the back of the console’s product packaging.

Once we inserted that Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge into the NES, my life was forever changed. The first game we played was Duck Hunt. At the time, I didn’t know how to aim or line up a shot. So I’d get really close to the TV to shoot the ducks.

Hearing the ducks quack and flap their wings and watching their amusing reactions after I pulled the Zapper’s trigger was nothing short of a magical experience. I was engaging with the animation on the TV screen, rather than just passively watching a cartoon. It was a morning like no other. At three years old, I wasn’t just a toddler anymore. I was running with the big boys now.

Duck Hunt features three game modes—Game A (one Duck), Game B (two Ducks), and Game C (Clay Shooter). You choose your game mode by pointing the Zapper away from the screen and pulling the trigger. After you settle on the game you want to play, point the Zapper at the screen, pull the trigger, and you’re all set to go.

In games A and B, your trusty hunting hound kicks off each round by sniffing out the fowl hidden behind the grass. Once their position is discovered, he leaps into the grass, forcing the winged creatures out of hiding. And that’s where your marksmanship skills come into play. Should you miss your targets, in addition to being the shame of hunters everywhere, your dog pops out from the bushes with a mocking giggle, making it awfully tempting to see if the Zapper works on him too.

It does not.

Interestingly, the Vs. Duck Hunt arcade game allowed you to “accidentally” shoot the dog during bonus stage sequences. However, it was removed from the NES version due to Nintendo’s concern to present a more family-friendly aesthetic that wouldn’t offend parents or encourage animal cruelty. While Duck Hunt lacks a proper two-player mode, Game A allows a second person to use the control pad to move the ducks around, increasing the unpredictability of their flight pattern.

As you progress through each round, the ducks fly in increasingly erratic patterns, requiring an increasingly steady shot. This was where I really started enjoying the game. In the more difficult rounds, you’ll also notice that the ducks can potentially escape or “fly away” much faster than before. So, while you need to take a careful shot to hit them, you also can’t spend forever contemplating whether to take the shot or wait a bit. It gives the game a sense of urgency, while leaving your success or failure strictly in your hands.

The clay shooting game in Duck Hunt is slightly different than the other two choices covered thus far. As the name suggests, you shoot clay pigeons instead of ducks. Just like the real sport, you are on a shooting range where two clay discs are launched in the air, and you’ll need to shoot them before they disappear from sight.

I loved seeing the clay pigeons burst into smaller shards when shot. It always reminded me of fireworks. Clay shooting tends to be more challenging than shooting ducks because your targets are smaller and the clay discs are released at different intervals and trajectories. You’ll also need to have a faster reaction time than in the duck modes since the clay pigeons disappear into the horizon quickly after being launched.

Regardless of which game mode you choose, each round allows you to try your aim at either 10 ducks or clay pigeons per round. The hit indicator at the bottom of the screen serves as a quick visual reference showing the number of targets shot in the current round. The blue bars below the duck-shaped icons (disc-shaped in the clay shooting game) represent the “pass line”—an indicator that shows the player how many hits are required to pass to the next round. Every few rounds, the quota minimum increases, demanding fewer misses or else it’s game over, man.

Each game mode features bright colors and well-drawn scenery. In the duck modes, you can clearly see that you are hunting in a grassy plain, while the clay shooting mode has a nice forest setting with mountains in the background. Unfortunately, the scenery never changes when progressing to different rounds. Other NES Zapper games, like Wild Gunman and Hogan’s Alley, at least featured different backgrounds every few rounds. Since your targets never change in Duck Hunt, it can feel monotonous after seeing the same area by the 10th round.

Music takes a back seat, as there’s not much to be heard outside of the title screen, starting a new game, transitioning to the next round, and the game-over jingle. It’s not a deal-breaker, though, because, similar to real life, it’s good to have silence in a marksmanship competition. While there isn’t much variety in the audio presentation, the sounds of your dog barking, ducks quacking, and wings fluttering through the air delivered a moderately immersive experience, given the limitations of the technology at the time.

Duck Hunt is an interesting relic of times past and one that I have conflicting feelings about. On the one hand, it was my formal introduction to the world of video games. And I do still quite enjoy playing the game to this day. It is a core memory that will always remain nestled in my heart.

On the other hand, nostalgic feelings aside, the game’s appeal lasts only as long as your attention span. At its core, you’re just shooting the same objects round after round until you fail to reach the required quota. Be that as it may, the game’s importance in video game history cannot be ignored.

For an NES launch title, Duck Hunt was an undeniable success and, along with the aforementioned Wild Gunman and Hogan’s Alley, quickly cemented the Zapper as more than just a flash-in-the-pan peripheral. It brought home the arcade light gun experience in a way seldom attempted on previous consoles, and to far greater acclaim. It was the perfect game to later bundle with Nintendo’s fledgling system on a mission to bring unique experiences into the home.

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So that’s my perspective on Duck Hunt. What’s yours? Tell me in the comments, and I’ll see you there. Thanks for reading!