Strong story and fun gameplay clash against moderate graphics and short time to finish the game.
As far as the side missions go, they are very easy to work through. The only side missions I did not finish the first time through were the pony express missions because I was relishing in the addictive fun of shooting the Indians that were feebly trying to impede me in reaching my destination. Oh, I didn't make it to the miner in time? Oh well, I sure enjoyed shooting every Indian that moved while I was getting there!! Side missions are just a way of getting easy money and upping your stats so you don't breeze through the storyline version of the game in a few hours. However, the lawman and rescue missions are fun for the simple fact that ending crime and saving people buy shooting the bad guys to death never seems to get old in this game!
What I did enjoy was the masculine, gritty, visceral experience I had working through the story. The voice acting was SUPERB by everyone and the story itself had me saying "Holy S%$@! I can't believe they did that!" a couple of times. There was also a good variety of weapons to choose from, which made me feel like I was a kid in a candy store, trying to decide whether I wanted to kill my enemies by shotgun (shooting a civilian and seeing them fly through the air until their body met the wall was most excellent!), arrow to the head, bullet to the brain from afar or let them get close so I may unleash my quick draw on all 8 of them at once!
There are some things I wish Neversoft would have worked on while developing the game. First of all, the graphics. The XBOX can produce some amazing graphically effects but the character models looked blocky and rough compared to the sharper character models produced in other current games. I also experienced times where the frame rate would drop when I would ride up upon five buffalo or dust would start blowing in town. Another instance of disappointment occurred during a game rendered cut scene: Colton and Clay are shoveling coal into the locomotive furnace. I hear the sound of coal being scooped onto the shovel but when they bring their shovels up, there is no coal!!!!
There are some other items, like NPCs weird and mistimed hand gestures while they are talking to you, inconsistent NPC horse riding speeds and a very empty Wild West to explore. Don't get me wrong, the environments looked great but there was nothing out there to do. I really think Neversoft has a great intellectual property with GUN, but I got the feeling that they did not have the time to polish the game before their ship date. If they would have given themselves six more months to polish the game, it would have been great. But sadly, it isn't so think about renting this game before buying it. Also, turn the difficulty up to hard or insane to get some challenge out of it.