Deer Hunter 2014- The Lost Temple and Glacial Bay

“You know, if you need 100 rounds to kill a deer, maybe hunting isn’t your sport.” —Elayne Boosler

A few weeks ago, Glu Games released the latest update to Deer Hunter 2014, adding to the game a host of new features, including bows and crossbows and special stealth hunt challenges. Moreover, bounties were added, encouraging players to play through older regions again to complete specific tasks (e.g. take down so many animals with lung shots, etc). Successfully completing a bounty yields gold and consumables. While the bounties and new weapons are exciting on its own, things get even more interesting with the addition of a new hidden region called the Lost Temple, which is unlocked by completing rare hunts and bow missions in regions four and five. As well, region ten, Glacial Bay, was released, as well, adding new weapons and hunts to the game.

• Here, I am equipped with the crossbow, which deals more damage than the compound bow but also has a reduced firing rate and suppression effect. The projectiles from the bow and crossbow behave like bullets, so there’s no need to compensate for bullet drop. When I first began using the bows, I thought that gravity would need to be factored for and missed many of my shots, although having worked with physics engines for my research projects before, I cannot hold it against Glu Games for not implementing a physics engine in Deer Hunter 2014.

• Old temple ruins overgrown with vibrant vegetation and tropical forests define the Lost Temple region. I’m inclined to say that this region is either set in Myanmar or Thailand because of its architecture: Aztec and Mayan temples have a different style.

• Players will need to invest Platinum Eagles into both their crossbow and compound bow to complete the eighty missions and five trophy hunts. The only way to earn them is via rare hunts and other special event hunts, making it a slower process. Gold can be used instead, although even with new new bounty missions, gold is still slow to come by, making progression through the lost temple much slower than through the conventional regions.

• I’ve been hearing about how some individuals were disappointed about how the Spring Break challenges and updates made the game lean increasingly in a pay-to-win manner, although I counter that I’ve gotten quite a bit of enjoyment from Deer Hunter 2014 without spending a single penny: of note was the particularly lucky discount I got on a special assault rifle that let me unlock a region 10 break-action shotgun, and because I had a Halloween event pistol leftover from way back, I’ve now unlocked the region 10 pistol, as well.

• That just looks beautiful: take a moment to gaze at the night sky and marvel at the shooting stars that occasionally streak by.

• The trophy hunts in the Lost Temple are very demanding in that a large number of platinum eagles are required to upgrade the crossbow and compound bow to the specifications. The best trick is to play as many of the regular missions as possible and do rare hunts as they appear to continue acquiring platinum eagles for upgrades.

• While Deer Hunter 2014 might call them customisations, the upgrades are mandatory. By the time one is finished the hidden region, they will have a maxed out compound bow (minus the infrared) and a maxed out crossbow.  With fully upgraded weapons, the trophy hunts aren’t anywhere near a challenge, and in fact, the biggest challenge is finding the target.

• Upon completing all of the trophy hunts, the Barton Hawk is unlocked. At this point in time, I see no reason in upgrading it, but one way or another, I do have all of the bows and crossbows now. I realise that players are dropping off comments asking me how to unlock certain things in the game, and to that, I can only say that 1) if you’re not playing on iOS, these regions don’t exist, and 2) if you’re having trouble unlocking things, patience is your friend, since there are no shortcuts in Deer Hunter 2014 besides paying coin for gold.

• Just for completeness’ sake, here’s a picture of me armed with the region ten shotgun in region ten. Glacial Bay is set in the far north, and like the Klondike region, only has one unique area. Of course, the moody and cold hills are quite nice, reminding me of some of the moments in Survivorman.

• The G&H Seeker assault rifle I have from the event is powerful enough to be useful even in Region 10: carefully placed shots allow me to down opponents that supposedly need a more powerful rifle. As it stands now, I cannot say I’m particularly inclined to continue writing about Deer Hunter 2014 when I have a vast collection of other games (for both iOS and PC) that I would eventually like to get around doing.

Set in the lush Southeast Asian jungles, the Lost Temple looks absolutely beautiful and is well worth the effort taken to unlock it. The region requires both the standard bow and crossbow to complete, and these are upgraded with a new earnable currency known as the Platinum Eagle, which is rewarded for successfully completing bow hunts and rare missions. These new additions to the game are refreshing and offer the incentive to continue playing, breathing new life into a game that quickly can become repetitive; at present, the lack of a cloud save feature is still the game’s biggest detractor, given that any error could undo months of progress in-game. Nonetheless, Deer Hunter 2014 remains a solid game, and I’m enjoying the inclusion of these new gameplay mechanics, although I think my time would be better spent blogging about other things.