Gun – Review

It’s the story of vengeance and truth. You play Colton White, a man (of course) on a mission to find out who his father is and why the man he thought was his pa wasn’t. It’s a tale right out of a Hollywood western.

Gameplay is a fairly simple affair, on your mission to find the truth and get vengeance you traipse the countryside, meet people and take on various deeds. It’s all fairly reminiscent of the GTA series only you can swipe horses instead of cars. Although it is a free roaming environment the game does run along a pre determined line of events (Don’t they all? – Ed.), but you can choose to do whatever ‘side missions’ you want. Blistering through the main story is probably not a great idea however, as side missions help boost various skills and you will need these as the story unfolds. You can also upgrade your equipment and buy better weapons etc. As I said, it’s kind of like GTA in the old west. The controls work well and I have to admit to being a bit of a fan of the matrix styled quick draw sequences, very nice.

Neversoft have done a superb job with the graphics. Best known for their Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, it’s really nice to see the development team branch out into something different and do so with such class. Environments are large and picturesque, all the while remaining true to the Wild West genre. The towns are gritty and dusty and the plains and mountains look like they’re straight off a postcard. Character models too are beautifully done, be it man or beast, though many of the NPC’s can be a little clone like. There are other nice touches too, the dust trail thrown up from horses or other movement and even the wind itself is perfectly done, I even saw a tumbleweed roll by. Right down to the smallest detail, this title has graphical clout, even on the almost defunct Xbox hardware… smoke dissipating from a cigar, beautiful.

Sound, as with the graphics, is done to a meticulous extent. When galloping on a horse you can even hear the rig jingling. Animal sounds are fantastic and there’s some real talent on board for the voice acting. On first starting the game I commented to my reviewing cohort that ‘Ned’ sounded like Whistler out of the Blade movies, he even looked like him, turns out the voice acting was indeed done by Kris Kristofferson. Other star power includes the brilliance of Brad Dourif who features in the TV series Dead Wood, which is something akin to this title given the political incorrectness of certain things and the gritty Wild West setting. The soundtrack too is spot on, it’s all very big screen Wild West and the tempo changes dependent on what’s happening. It’s all brilliantly orchestrated. For the deaf or hard of hearing gamer there is a subtitles option that can be switched on. Without this, much of the story would be missed since it is imparted by speech so for the deaf gamer the subtitles need to be on to keep up with what you’re meant to be doing.

The female gamer can’t play an ass kicking cowgirl hell-bent on revenge, why not, well I’m not sure, but it is a shame as that would have made this game even better! There are peripheral female characters of course, one of the most important is Jenny, the whore your pappy was mighty close to. I know this is meant to be the old west, where whores were allegedly aplenty, but there were some cool ass cowgirls too surely? Needless to say, they don’t make an appearance here (although outlaw Bloody Belle comes close, but she’s ‘bad’) and the misogyny is right out of the Hollywood idea of what makes a western macho, right down to the rude little ditties. This won’t ruin the female gamers gaming experience, but it would be nice to have been given the choice to be able to play even a tomboy character. Oh well maybe in the future. With all that said, Jenny is actually pretty cool and stands up for herself so that’s a positive aspect.

Overall despite the misogyny, this title did keep me gripped until the very end and therein lay this games one big flaw, the end comes all too fast, even if you take on all the side missions the length of play isn’t great and given there’s going to be no real replay value that could be disappointing to some. For me personally I would rather have a brilliant short game than a mediocre game lengthened for lengths sake. Graphically I am really impressed, I played this title on the 360 a couple of weeks ago and thought it was really well done, it has to be said that the Xbox version in itself is amazing by comparison, Neversoft haven’t cut any corners here. If you’re a Wild West aficionado this IS the game you’ve been waiting for.

On the Up:

* Gorgeous, from the hot spring mists to the scenic vista’s, breathtaking and true to the genre. Character models too are nigh on flawless.
* A gripping story with great characters.
* Some true star quality voice acting including Brad Dourif, Kris Kristofferson, Lance Henriksen, Ron Perlman and Tom Skerritt. All done superbly.
* It made me gasp at one point in the story so it must have been good enough to become emotionally involved in.
* This is what Red Dead Revolver and Dead Mans Hand should have been.

On the Down:

* The length overall of the main game. The shortness of some of the missions (side and main) mean you may want to crank up the difficulty or they can be over before they’ve started. (I completed the main story in about 6 hours, including a lot of side missions – but not all – The game returns to these after completion of the main story.)
* Some ropey AI and a couple of glitches.
* Townships can seem more like ghost towns.
* Some would say the overall ‘ease’ of the game, for me I thought it alleviated frustration so can’t really be considered a negative aspect.

Review by Tracy