What's a 3 letter word for mediocre?
To accomplish your grisly, revenge-y business, you're given a small arsenal of guns over the course of the game. At the beginning, you've got a pretty weak rifle with limited ammo and a six-gun (as they're very, very fond of saying in-game) with infinite ammo. As you complete story missions, you'll receive a shotgun, a sniperish rifle, a bow, and get more powerful versions of all of the above. You can earn money completing side-quests to buy tools and various tricks that make your weapons more powerful. Sound familiar? Yeah, it is all a little in the vein of GTA. Scale GTA down, Replace cars with horses and what you'd have wouldn't be far from GUN.
That said, GUN does improve on the formula in a few key areas. The first is in its pacing. Unlike GTA, GUN really does urge you to move on to the next Story mission and keep things rolling along. GUN is a much more story driven game than GTA, and it does a good job of keeping that story as the main focus of the game. The side missions are dispensed a few at a time after you complete key story missions, so you never spend too much time off ranchanding (if that isn't a word, it should be), pulling timmy out of the well, whatever.
The second, and most obvious, is the Third-Person meets First-Person-Shooter combat controls. You control your targeting reticle exactly like you would in Halo or any other FPS, but you can see your entire character. For precision shooting, most of the guns in the game let you zoom into a true FPS viewpoint and shoot that way. I've played a few console shooters like this, and I've got no complaints. It works, it provides for more flexibility and interaction with the environment, and it's a welcome change from the standard FPS viewpoint. Added to that, as you kill enemies, you fill the "Quickdraw" meter. Once it's full, you can go into something like bullet time from Max Payne and wipe out a wave of enemies with ease. The combat system is hands down the strongest point of GUN. Which is good, 'cause this is me writing, so of course i have to mention...
The Bad. GUN definitely has its fair share of it. Tippity top of the list is the HORRIBLE NPC DIALOGUE. Every time you're forced to talk to an NPC the conversations go something like this:
"Well howdy pardner!"
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*5-15 second pause
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"I wuz wundrin' if youse could do's me a favor?
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*5-15 second pause
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"I heared about a caravan comin' over here from Dodge City."
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*5-15 second pause
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"Seems like they're running a bit late."
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*5-15 second pause
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"Could you ride on out and see if everythin's okay with 'em?"
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*5-15 second pause
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"Last I heared, they was spotted out in the direction of the Badlands"
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*5-15 second pause
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END OF CONVERSATION
Okay, that was pretty painful to read, yeah? EVERY conversation you have with an NPC outside of a cutscene is at that pace or SLOWER. And notice something? The ONLY important part of that conversation is the LAST FRIGGING SENTENCE. That tells you where you need to look to find his verdammt friends. The fact that you can skip most of these is the only thing that saved my sanity. The WORST of these happen in the middle of several missions though. Someone will start talking to you, you'll be looking for the path to the next part of the mission and suddenly you'll get this sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.
You're going... to have... to wait... until... he... finishes... talking... before... you... can... progress...
During a couple of these I smoked 2 or 3 cigarettes in the time he took to spit out whatever the heck he had on his puny mind.
Next on the list, and almost as irritating (oh, who am i kidding? NOTHING could be even close to being as annoying as those damn NPCs), is the complete and utter lack of any replayability. NONE. Zip, zero, zilch, NADA. Why is this so annoying? Well, when you get 100% completion, the game unlocks several secret items for you to use. Sounds good, doesn't it? The problem is, YOU JUST FINISHED THE GAME AT ONE-HUNDRED-PERCENT. THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO DO. and I do mean NOTHING. Nothing to buy, no missions, nowhere to go... i can't emphasize enough how much NOTHING there is to do after you unlock these items. They're beyond pointless. They're like giving a $300 golden lighter to a person who doesn't smoke. Their mere existence lessens the rest of the game.
I can keep hammering that point into the ground, but it's probably time to move on. The other bads in the game aren't nearly as big. The character modeling is often pretty shabby (check out The Rancher's hands), the game's got a fair few bugs plaguing it, and quite often the graphics look outdated and bland. The side-missions get a bit repetitive (though i was quite fond of the Texas Hold 'Em mini-game, much to my surprise), and overall the game's just too easy.
SOOoooooo... uh... this is the awkward place where I try to tie all this stuff together into some kind of conclusion, isn't it? With GUN, it's not an easy job. I enjoyed the game, so I'd recommend it... but if you never played it, I really don't think you'd be missing a whole lot. So... yeah. GUN! If you've got Gamefly or some similar service, rent it. If not... don't. See if I care.