Played on:
Xbox 360
Neversoft has finally branched out, away from the Tony Hawk franchise and skateboarding games altogether. But few expected them to go make a western game like GUN with open-ended gameplay and a big world map for you to freely explore. But they did, and while GUN has a great story and some nice side missions in its non-linear setup, it simply lacks the fun that players might expect out of a game like this.
In GUN, you'll play as a young gunslinger named Colton White. He works for his father, Ned, trapping and hunting and making a living out in the wild this way. But things crash to a halt when Ned gets caught up in a scheme that costs him his life (this is all explained inside the first 30 minutes of gameplay, so I wouldn't consider it a spoiler). Ned tells Colton that he's not actually his father, and sends him on a quest right before getting killed.
Colton will then have to travel to Dodge City to discover what Ned was talking about and avenge his death. Along the way, he'll come across a scheming, murderous reverend named Reed and an ex-Civil War officer, Magruder, who is hell-bent on a quest of his own. And on the way, Colton will meet a variety of people, some of whom have no regard for the law at all, others who will be friends for life, and others who will try and trick you and betray you.
This all sounds great - it really does, because the game's main story is excellent - but where it falls apart is in many of the side missions and in the various non-essential characters. None of these side missions that you get sent on are very interesting, so there's this huge gap in quality between the main story levels and everything else.
You'll have access to a pretty decent arsenal in GUN - you'll get a pistol and rifle, and later on a shotgun, sniper rifle, and a bow. You've also got a melee weapon, and all of this stuff can be upgraded to new versions with more ammo capacity, faster firing and reload rates, and just overall more damage. You can go back to older weapons if you really like, but rarely would you actually want to; most of the new weapons you get are good enough that there are no trade-offs.
Horses are also a major part of GUN. You will rarely absolutely need one for a specific mission, but you'll most certainly find them handy. You can shoot from your horse just like on land (with just as much accuracy, too), and your horse will even share some of the damage you take while you're riding. You can sprint and trample your on-foot foes, but be careful not to dig your spurs in too much, as you can actually kill your horse as well. It's not just you riding, though, as many of your enemies will have their own horses. If you aim well enough, you'll hit just the rider and can actually take their horse once you've killed him.
While the story mode missions will only last a seasoned gamer maybe four to five hours, the game's got at least that much content set aside in the secondary missions. Between Texas Hold 'em poker tournaments, Pony Express missions, quests from a federal marshal, hunting elusive beasts, some ranching stuff, and defending Dodge city, there's plenty to do. Again, while the missions themselves are delivered pretty badly, they at least give you a pretty wide range of stuff to do. Make no mistake, though, as this is an action game: most missions involve shooting at a large number of bad guys.
Speaking of the bad guys, GUN gives you plenty of opportunity to show your skills as a desperado. You can go up against groups of five or six enemies at a time, and this is where Quickdraw comes in. This is a slow motion mode (although it's not exactly bullet time, considering that the bullets still instantly hit your enemies) that allows you to flick the analog stick to auto-aim to the next guy; the result is that you can quickly take down several enemies almost at once. Your Quickdraw meter refills faster when you combo up many kills quickly, so you've still got to be fast and accurate when not in slow motion.
While the main plot in GUN is put together particularly well, I think that there were some missed opportunities, especially with regard to voice acting. It's an all-star cast doing the main characters; Reverend Reed is played by Brad Dourif (Doc Cochran on the excellent HBO show Deadwood), Magruder is played by Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Colton White is Thomas Jane (from the recent Punisher) movie, Ron Perlman (Hellboy) is Hoodoo Brown, and finally, Kris Kristofferson (Whistler in the Blade movies) plays Ned White. The biggest problem is that Ned dies early on and he's probably the most interesting of them all. The bad guys are just a little too insane for my tastes, as they become caricatures, and Colton himself never actually has a home in the world of GUN. In the end, these characters just sort of appear in the game world whenever you start a story mission; to me, it'd have been more interesting to actually have them play a larger part in the normal game world.
Speaking of the playable area, GUN seems very large at first, but after a while you'll realize that there are two cities, one at each end of the map, and a surprisingly small amount of distance between them. On horseback you can travel from one side all the way across to the other in a matter of a couple of minutes, and while there are plenty of twists and curves in the hills up north, I think the game would have benefited from a much larger area to play around in.
The insistence of the developers in doing all the game's cutscenes inside the game engine limits the possibilities in the characters themselves, because the game seems to have only one facial expression for any given character - so they made sure that that character is always in the mood that his or her face exhibits. It's fine for a more classic western, but this game tries to do a lot of things other than just shootouts in the street; whenever it strays away from those things, you can expect the quality to vary wildly.
While there are some RPG elements in this game, they don't rule over your gameplay like many actual RPGs do. You can do side missions to raise a few stats, which will only subtly improve certain abilities (like horse speed, damage with weapons, or time you can spend in Quickdraw mode), and you can buy items to drastically improve your weapons. Money comes from various other side missions, and while you can beat the game without ever touching one of these missions or ever making a single dollar, you'll miss out on more than half the game. Of course, it's this half that seems to have been thrown together the quickest, so it's up to you.
I enjoyed GUN for what it was intended to be - a quick romp through a western world. The gameplay's neither terribly exciting nor really unique in the world of action games, and what uniqueness we get from the setting is about all it really has (other than the core story which happens to be pretty damn good). Even with its four difficulty settings, I found myself unwilling to play the game a second time, and once the side missions are all done, there's little replay value. GUN was a good game while it lasted, but it's not exactly a shining star in the fun department.
