VS. Duck Hunt

aka: Duck Hunt
Moby ID: 7312
NES Specs
Included in

Description official descriptions

Duck Hunt is a shooting simulation where the player goes out with his faithful dogs to hunt ducks. It requires the use of the Zapper light gun. In game modes A and B, players view a swampland from a first-person perspective. The dog scares the ducks out of the swamp, one at a time in mode A or two at a time in mode B. The ducks go flying around in the air and the player has three shots and a limited amount of time to shoot the ducks before they fly away. Each round only allows a limited number of misses in order to move on successfully. As the rounds progress, the ducks begin flying faster and faster, and fewer misses are allowed. In game mode A, a second player can control the movement of the duck using a controller plugged into port 2.

Mode C features target practice on clay pigeons rather than ducks. The perspective and rules here are the same, with only three shots to destroy two clay pigeons before they disappear off the horizon. Destroy enough clay pigeons to move on to the next, tougher round.

Spellings

  • ダックハント - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (NES version)

6 People

Executive Producer (uncredited)
Producer (uncredited)
Chief Director (uncredited)
Design (uncredited)
Program (uncredited)
Sound (uncredited)

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 58% (based on 22 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 104 ratings with 4 reviews)

Ducks Beware

The Good
The concept, I mean, shooting ducks is fun(in a videogame sense of course). It also is simple which is sometimes a refreshing quality in a game. The clay pigeon shooting mode adds to its playability, and the dog laughing if you miss is a nice touch.

The Bad
The repetitiveness of the levels, nothing drastic really changes. I wont criticise the sound or the graphics because they were fine for 1985.

The Bottom Line
Fun(except for Ducks) retro trip to the past.

NES · by Big C (56) · 2003

Ruff ruff ruff!

The Good
Ahh...what can you say against Duck Hunt ? So many memories. Like not letting your sister have the zapper after an hour. Ahh... memories. But how could you not put it down? It's great arcade action! And extremely addicting!

Story

You start the game, your hunting dog sniffs around, barks, and jumps into the grass and starts chasing out ducks.

Gameplay

The gameplay is very simple. Just point the light gun at the and shoot ! You only get three shots to get a duck that flies up on screen. Shoot too many times, or miss and it'll fly away. And then we all know what happens next. Your trusty dog pops out of the grass and laughs at you. I personally think it's kind of funny. He also holds up the ducks you shoot.

The real challenge of the game is increasing speed of the ducks, and your aim. If you're a lousy shot, you won't get very far. I got almost all the way to 22,000 points.

If you get tired of shooting ducks, you can always shoot clay targets! Yes, there's another game included ! It's at the bottom of the selection screen. It's slightly more challenging than the ducks. One cool aspect is you can shoot a target when it's really far away.

Oh yeah, and you have to use the Zapper gun with this game. There's only one downside though, but I'll get to that later. It's far better than using a controller.

Sound

The dog barking, the ducks, and that little chord that plays when you shoot a duck. Oh yeah, and the dog laughing at you. There's some music at the title screen, but it's not very memorable. And that's it more or less.

Control

There's actually no control at all (unless you use cheats.) When you pull the trigger on the zapper, if you hit a duck, it registers it as a hit. It's only as accurate as your aim, so you can't say it cheats (Ha ha! You stink !)

The Bad
Control

The only downside as far as I can see is the need of the Zapper gun. You see, it works with reflection. That was no problem with old glass screen TV's, but today's flat screen TV's won't work with it. I know, I've tried. Other than that I have no complaints !

The Bottom Line
This is a great game for all ! If you read the review, I'm not sure how to convince you to try it, but you'll love it if you do !

NES · by GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) · 2008

On the hunt

The Good
This was my second game on the NES and I can still say it is very entertaining. It requires the zapper as a controller, which is absolutely fun to use.

The best part is naturally the light gun. It's just fun to use, especially in a game from 1985. You can stay close to the TV for some ease, or stay back to improve your accuracy and aim.

The clay pigeon shooting adds some nice diversity to the game, as well as the chance to shoot two birds at once.

The graphics and the music aren't exactly spectacular but are pretty good for an NES.

Oh, an naturally everyone loves your hunting dog that will laugh in your face if you don't shoot any birds!

The Bad
The bad part is the repetitiveness of the levels. Nothing changes except for the speed of the ducks, which do get harder and harder to shoot. But that's about it. The game is tremendous fun, but after two rounds of it, you will start to get bored, and even clay pigeon shooting doesn't bring the interest back. I continually go back and play it because it's fun, but it's only good in short bursts.

Also, the necessity of the light gun makes it hard for some people to play, since it won't work with anything else. The controller doesn't react to the game. So even if you have a WORKING NES, with the game, it might be even harder to find a working light gun.

The Bottom Line
This game is actually tremendous fun because we have relatively few good games which use a light gun, and this is the one of the earliest ones. Unfortunately, those without a light gun will not be able to play it. And even then, it may be even better to the the SMB combo to fall back on when you get tired of the game.

NES · by Matt Neuteboom (976) · 2005

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Arcade or FC release first? Freeman (64827) Jan 1, 2020
MSX port - unofficial? Grandy02 (673) Oct 30, 2010
Don't just play it... wear it! Pseudo_Intellectual (66275) Jun 14, 2007

Trivia

Dog

The Dog is one of the most infamous characters in videogame history. Why?

Well, at the start of a round he sniffs around the grass before diving in. When you're successful, he triumphantly holds your kill. But when you miss..........he laughs. At you. He stands up, points at you and chuckles. There are games on the internet devoted entirely to killing him.

References to the game

In the movie Boyz N The Hood, at Ricky and Doughboy's home, one of DoughBoy's homeboys is playing Duck Hunt with their NES sitting on top of the TV.

But the twist is, he first holds up a pistol, acting like he's gonna kill someone. When he fires, it sounds like it's real, but then in a second, Duck Hunt pops up, showing he's just playing a game. The problem is he didn't use a Zapper, just a real pistol.

Unofficial DOS port

In July of 1996, the underground ANSI art group Creators of Intense Art (CiA) released an unauthorized mouse-controlled MS-DOS port of this game in their 26th pack, downloadable at http://artscene.textfiles.com/artpacks/1995/ciapak26.zip

All game graphics were re-rendered as ANSI art by group founder/leader "Napalm", with programming duties falling to "Wizard of Id".

"Coders Information: þ 884 Lines Compiled þ 57k of Code Compiled þ 15k of Data Size þ 16k of Stack Size þ 100k of Heap"

Unofficial iPhone port

A version for the iPhone, based on the NES version, was made available on 5th January 2009 for $0.99. Ported to the platform through an emulator known as iPES, Lucas Manfield (LawlMart) was able to recreate most of the game. The first version had no sound and recreated the N64 analog stick and NES A-button to control the game. Sound and touch controls were promised for an updated 1.1 version, but Nintendo had the game pulled on 30th January 2009.

Awards

  • Screwattack.com
    • 1 in the "Top Ten Videogame Douchebags" list (for the dog

Information also contributed by Mark Ennis, Robbb"> and [Sciere](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,30979/)

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 7312
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Servo.

Wii U, Arcade added by Michael Cassidy.

Additional contributors: Apogee IV, Alaka, Pseudo_Intellectual, LepricahnsGold, Patrick Bregger, Grandy02.

Game added September 30, 2002. Last modified February 18, 2024.