Gun Review

I recently had a little chat with myself on the site (an editorial, written monologue... call it what you will) in which I tried to single out the problems that have to do with the use of violence in video games. To summarize it here for you, I am definitely not against the use of violence in video game, but *I am* against the use of mindless violence. (Only when it is not employed against mimes. They have an ass load of beatings coming to them -Mo)

Stay low and watch my six. NOT LIKE THAT, YOU FAIRY!

Insert your favorite explosion special effects sound.

That said, I have found Gun to be a perfect example of how a mature game successfully and meaningfully implements excessive violence in order to enhance the overall gameplay experience. The game features a well-told, larger-than-life plot that fuses fiction and fantasy with the grittiness of the 19th century Wild West. Gun has the feel of great Westerns, a genre that was masterfully resurrected in Hollywood by Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven" and Kevin Costner in "Open Range," both excellent movies that I warmly recommend to our readers. The Gun narrative fuses the fantasy notion of ancient treasures with the no-nonsense approach to the Wild West (if a bit more dramatized) and it does so with a decent degree of success. The result is a captivating storyline, which is really the hallmark of this game.

Reading about Gun prior to its release, I got the impression that it was, more or less, a GTA clone set against the backdrop of the old west complete with cowboys and Indians. But that is not exactly true. Gun is far more linear and a lot less expansive than the GTA games. There are less side missions and the areas in which the game takes place are smaller and a lot more constrictive. Bearing in mind what I said about the story, it becomes clear that Gun is more of your classic third-person action title than a Western take on the GTA series. You'll feel a lot more like being led on rails than you would in any GTA game. Nonetheless, the concept itself does have its unique facets and it mainly has to do with the Wild West theme. Riding horses in the game is done very nicely and is quite intuitive... it actually feels like you are riding a horse (Which you have to admit is pretty different from driving a car). Secondly, the excellent implementation of the Quick Draw mode (a spin on bullet time where time slows down as you draw your six-shooters in first person) is a nice and natural way of conveying the idea of lighting fast gunslingers in the old West. Generally speaking, it's not so much the gameplay novelties (aside from horseback riding) that will appear unique to the player, but the whole Western atmosphere that is really a refreshing break from the myriad of Tolkien-esque, World War II, and Super hero-based fantasy worlds.

The mission design in Gun does well to keep the players interested in the game. The action gels well with the captivating storyline, so that was probably the primary reason why I never felt bored. The game offers a wide range of Western-style pistols and rifles and you'll often be manning Gatling guns and cannons, as well as using bow and arrows. The choice of weapons is good and they work nicely in the game. In terms of gameplay mechanics, Gun plays very much like a GTA game would in third person, though you get to shoot from some more interesting firearms (at least from this reviewer's point of view). As I said, the Quick Draw mode is a fairly novel twist, it fits intuitively into the action, and it does add a bit of variety to the fights. Then there is stuff like using your knife to scalp people and so on. (Definitely a fun thing to do if you want to make your kill as personal as possible.) Overall, the action itself may feel a bit clunky at first, but as you set the mouse sensitivity to your liking and you get the hang of the Quick Draw mode and shooting while mounted, you'll start enjoying yourself very much. The missions are hard though never really frustrating (my only gripe being with the boss encounters). The AI is what you'd expect from a game like this. I'd say it's a bit better than what I've seen in GTA: San Andreas, but that's not saying a lot. In lieu of that, there's always a way to sucker the bosses and that can be a bit anticlimactic.

I like my pistols. I'm into design and shit.

It's always important to keep your canteen full.

The soundtrack as well as the sound effects and the voice acting are superb, which was to be expected, considering that I liked the story as a cinematic experience and not simply a collection of dialogue.

While the game uses some DirectX 9.0 shader techniques it looks less than stellar. It looks like your regular console port (we're talking about the old Xbox here), so any talk of next-gen graphics in relation to Gun is out of place. Still, it wasn't on the account of the graphics that I felt compelled to play on; the visuals are passable, but the main thing about them is that they don't take away from the fun or the fluidity of the action.

Finally, Gun offers quite few hours of playtime. Considering that there is no multiplayer mode to speak of, the fact that you can upgrade your hero (buy better equipment and beef up the stats with side missions) and that the main story is satisfyingly lengthy, makes Gun a pretty good purchase for PC owners. I don't think you'll go wrong if you shell out your cash for this one. Gun is a far better game than I had initially suspected, and was given less credit by the online press than it actually deserves.