Cabela’s Adventure Camp is a collection of mini-games with an outdoor summer camp theme. Try mountain biking, river rafting, wave riding, skeet shooting, archery, and other events as you compete to be the top camper (Wii version reviewed here).

You can choose to play each game separately and one at a time with Free Play, or compete in a whole week’s worth of activities in the main game. First you must create and name your camper, or let the game make a random one for you. Then you play a string of games and whoever has the most points by the end of the camp week wins.

The first game you start out with is Bear, Hunter, Ninja, which is just a fancy way of saying Rock, Paper, Scissors. Hold the remote to imitate the pose you want to do. For the next few activities except for the last one, you can choose whatever ones you want to do.

Mountain biking, river rafting, and wave riding have pretty much the same controls. Tilt the Wii remote to steer, and press buttons to speed up, slow down, or jump. The biking races have the best controls, though. In river rafting, you must alternate pressing left and right on the D-pad to paddle, which is confusing since you still tilt to steer. The controls in the wave riding games are a little too touchy, however.

Skeet shooting and archery have similar controls, too. Just aim the remote at the screen to shoot at targets. In archery, you must lift the remote up each time you want to reload. Needless to say, skeet shooting is more fun. You can also fish, too. The last camp activity is ‘hogwhacking,’ which is like a mix of whack a mole and the Simon memory game.

Up to four players can play the games, but not all at the same time. The other campers will ‘grief’ the other character by distracting them when it’s not their turn. Cabela’s Adventure Camp is an OK game, but the world really doesn’t need another Wii mini-game collection. Especially since other outdoor Wii titles like Go Vacation are 50 times better. Plus, Adventure Camp could’ve used more mini-games, too. Still, if your family loves camping, they still may enjoy this one anyway.

Kid Factor:

Reading skill is helpful for the instructions during the loading screens, but not necessary since picture cues appear with the text, too. Some younger gamers may get frustrated at the difficulty, but it’s not too hard usually. The game is much more fun in multiplayer, and Cabela’s Adventure Camp is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Violence, as you can crash on the bikes and boats.

Tags: Game Reviews