Leaving the bolt-action boomsticks and the telescopic sights back at the cabin and opting for something a little more primitive - a handgun, shotgun, bow, or flintlock - is often the most rewarding way to play these games. Even with gun shake, bullet drop and other ballistic irritants modeled, hunting with scoped rifles can start to feel rather clinical after a while. With a crossbow or 19th century cavalry Colt in your hands you know you can't just heart-shot every unsuspecting ungulate from half a mile away.

No, you have to carefully creep closer (staying downwind, naturally) or entice the quarry toward you with musky chemical attractants and alarmingly phallic calling devices. There’s something deliciously dastardly about luring something furry to its doom. Seeing a far-off stag stop and turn its head on hearing a fake doe call or a rattled pair of antlers makes our inner Wile E. Coyote chuckle every time. The glee would be even... umm... gleefuller if there was more skill involved. The chance of making an effective call is usually determined by an RPG-style stat rather than the outcome of an ingenious mini-game. We’re still waiting for the hunt sim that does something really inventive with sonic seduction.

Actually, thinking about it, there was one that had a good stab. DH’s long-dead sister series, the delightfully eccentric Bird Hunter, had a call system that had to be seen, or rather heard, to be believed. To lure ducks onto the water in front of your blind, not only did you have to learn how to space your plastic decoys appropriately (different spacings for each species) you also had to memorize complex call patterns. And of course the turkey hunting was even more involved. To tempt “toms” like a pro tom tempter you had to learn to play maybe 50 different tunes on your turkey box, turkey slate and, honestly we’re-not-making-this-up, turkey diaphragm.