There's gold in this thar game
So, Neversoft, tired of being the weakling in the playground, bullied by all the other developers, decided to prove those fools wrong! And wrong they were, when, in late 2005, Gun popped onto our shelves. A wild-west shooter in the free-roaming vein of Grand Theft Auto, it certainly had a lot of potential as well as a lot to live up to.
Did it do well? Damn straight.
Story 8/10
You are Colton White, son of a civil-war veteran, Ned. When out hunting with your pa when you come across a steamboat a-floating down the river, and, like most folk, are happy of the lift and hop on. On the steamboat, however, all hell breaks loose when a dodgy preacher kills a woman. This sets a chain of events that leads Colton to travel to Dodge City and find out his true heritage.
The story, like all westerns, is full of betrayal, murder, lies, greed and lust. Colton is motivated by revenge, which is good, because you know that he, unlike CJ from GTA San Andreas, is actually going to get something done, instead of skipping about and doing everything except what he set out to do. The plot is well-rounded and ties in a lot of the goings-on in the 1880's, like the gold rush, the civil war, and the slavery of the Native American tribes.
It's also very raw, dealing with a lot of violence, greed and profanity. There are a lot of twists in the story, but they're easy enough to see coming if you look closely. That said, the cut-scenes and the story will entertain you immensely.
Gameplay 8/10
The main story missions advance the plot along and unlock new areas, as well as change the existing areas around the map accordingly. The missions vary widely, from protecting characters to on-rails shooting, to just plain shoot-em-ups. The difficulty curve is pretty smooth, and each mission is designed to be challenging, no matter how low or high your stats are. By successfully completing the story missions, you unlock better weaponry, and all weapons are utilized correctly, either from close-range shooting with the shotgun, sniping with the rifle, or stealthy attacks with the bow.
The game is free-form, so you can easily ride, on horse, from one end of the map to the other, and busy yourself with one of the many side missions, if the storyline gets too hard for you. The game actually rewards these distractions, as each side mission completed gives you more stats, and gives you more money, with which you can upgrade your guns, buy more health slots, or simply gamble away to earn even more money!
Each of these side missions play out exactly like a real one, none of them are randomly-generated, so you don't feel like you're doing the same stuff repeated over and over again, unlike (for example) the taxi missions in GTA. There is a variety of side-missions, ranging from being a lawman, to bringing parcels to different people within a certain time limit, to ridding a town of wolves.
You can replenish your health during the game by taking a sip from your whiskey bottle, which is just as well, seeing as you get shot to pieces pretty quickly in large gunfights.
A good portion of the game, specifically the traveling between towns, is done on horseback, and it couldn't be any more fun. Unlike cars, horses have better maneuverability, and its great fun galloping from one place to another. When you trot, you can stick your spurs into your horse's side to give it a burst of speed. This, of course, hurts it, but it regains its health eventually. Fighting on horseback is also good fun, as it's easy to make the horse ride in one direction, whilst you aim in another.
The gunplay within the game is well done, if a little ropey regarding the controls. Once you get used to it, however, it becomes second nature and you make swift transitions from sniping to slow-motion quick-drawing, to throwing whisky bombs, to gutting people like fish. These skills are needed throughout the game, especially on the later missions, where the objectives require you to move quickly between running, jumping, shooting to sniping to using cannons, gatling guns, or any of the other weapons you can control within the game.
Graphics 7/10
The graphics within the game aren't great. They aren't bad, but I've seen better on the Gamecube. They look like PS2 graphics, which is acceptable, seeing as it's a port, but it's kind of annoying knowing that the GC can do far better. Alas.
All the character's bodies look realistic enough, especially during the cut-scenes, and they react realistically when shot, spraying out litres of blood about the place for the pure hell of it. The areas and landscapes are massive and beautiful to behold, the colours changing from the dusty brown of Dodge City, vivid green for the alpine mountains, and dull grey for the rock quarries.
Some missions are also based at night, which is nice to behold the sky, but, unfortunately, the day doesn't turn into night normally during the game, which is a shame, as it would be great to gallop off into the sunset. But Neversoft was having none of that romanticism, those fools.
The best thing about the game is that if you stay in one space for long enough, tumbleweed blows across your path! Oh, I cried with joy.
Sound 9/10
The music is generally ambient throughout the game, moving from cheesy harmonica-and-banjo "Olde West" music to triumphant scores as you ride through the landscape. Each city has its own theme, but they're mostly stereotypical "Wild West" tunes. Not that it's bad, though - it sets the scene perfectly.
The voice acting is excellent, featuring the voices of Lance Henriksen and Ron Perlman, doing their usual garb of screaming nonsense at each other and other characters. None of the characters ever feel "unbelievable" and all the lines seem realistic enough. I've never been in 1880's America, but from what Clint Eastwood tells me, they seem genuine enough.
The NPCs within the game also shout random things at you, whether it be pleasantries ("Well hallo there, stranger!") or threats ("I'm-a gonna kill you!") they all add to the atmosphere. It's particularly fine during shoot-outs, where they shout to each other if you're reloading, or they scream in agony if you shoot them. Also, you can knock them down without actually killing them, and they lie there writhing in pain, telling you: "Take mah boots off, I don't wanna die with mah boots on!" Top class.
Presentation 8/10
All the menus are presented excellently, with conceptual drawings from the creation of game, as well as scenes from the game. The in-game menus offer you a number of stats to view, including the number of horses you've killed, amount of upgrades, guns, gold you've got, etc. You can also inspect your weapons, their stats, and change your gun accordingly.
All the information within the game is shown clearly, including your current weapon, ammo, map, health, etc. All your mission objectives, your location, and the entire game map can be accessed from the pause menu.
Control 8/10
The controls are hard to get used to at the start of the game, but after the initial training mission, they get easier. The L button makes you duck/peek around corners, the R button fires your current weapon. A is your melee weapon and Z is your thrown weapon. Y is the all-round action button for talking to people, dismounting, using objects, etc. X makes you jump, B launches the quickdraw mode, where time slows down and you can take out enemies easier. The C stick makes you look about, the control stick moves you, and the control pad covers everything from changing weapons, to zooming, to refilling your health.
Overall, the controls work excellently, and, although you might occasionally get confused and switch weapons when you meant to just refill your health. But this happens very rarely, and is forgivable.
Extra features 7/10
Apart from the actual story missions, there's a stack of side missions, such as the aforementioned Pony Express, Federal Marshal, Lawman and Poker. You can dig for gold, hunt wolves, be a cattle rancher, trade with the Native Americans, or just go crazy and shoot innocents for the fun of it. There's not an amazing amount of missions, but they're all so well done that they feel like a part of the game more than tangent missions. Each one is individual, not randomly generated, so they're great fun.
Play Time 4/10
The game's only letdown. The story missions should only take you a few hours. It took me a week, and that's not a week of solid playing, either, that's like a week of about three large playing sessions. Not a long game by all accounts, but 100% fun the whole time you play it. It might last you, say 8 hours, but that's 8 hours of violent enjoyment.
Replayability 7/10
Although the story missions may not last you long, the extras could easily double the playtime, and it'll take you longer to achieve a 100% ranking, which would get you all the hidden extras the game has to offer.
Buy or rent? 5/10
I'd say rent first; you could probably complete the story if you stayed at it long enough. It's worth buying though; especially if you get it cheap, just to have, as it, like GTA, is great to come back to just for a bit of fun.
A fantastic game, let down slightly by its short length, but a fantastic game nonetheless, best game set in the Wild West at the moment.
Percentage: (The separate scores added together) 71%
Gamespot score: (Not an average) 7.0