Sporting Clays (c) WizardWorks
44%


By: Mud

Sporting Clays may seem like it is another one of those titles that aren't worth playing and if that was the first thing you thought about when it was released then you hit the nail on the head. I played this game thoroughly for roughly an hour or so and let me tell you, if real clay shooting is this fun then it would be outlawed as a sport. First of all, the only cool shooting game ever to come out on a home system was duck hunt for Nintendo and that was only because I was so young when I used to play that game. The game does have several cool options that may make it ever so slightly more playable such as a trail feature to better judge the speed and aim on the clay. And it features a course editor that seems to be pretty solid. But hell, a course editor for clay shooting is basically pointless.

Mouse control in any shooting game is a big negative to me. Take Virtua Cop II for instance. Great game in the arcade, but failed to deliver at home because of the crummy mouse aiming that it employed. Games like Quake and Forsaken can pull off the mouse aiming because they do some of the aiming for you. Aiming at a 6x6 pixel wide clay is another story entirely. The tournament mode seemed to be pretty sound, if not boring, from what I tried of it. Graphics are ho-hum. Not great but functional. The shotgun sound is cool although it reminds me of the Doom II sound effect. I don't know if they stole it or not.

The Good:

Hmmm Hmmm let me think. Well the vector differential optimization of the trailing shotgun path is well implemented :) Really I cant think of much good except for the shotgun sound.

The Bad:

Crummy mouse aiming at a small, tiny clay. Without the trail feature on the game is almost impossible to even play. Graphics aren't the greatest. Needs 3dfx support.

Graphics : 11/25
Sound : 10/20
Gameplay : 10/20
Fun Factor : 2/15
Packaging : 5/5
Multiplayer Play: 1/5
Overall Impression: 5/10

Overall Rating: 44/100


Rating
44%