Git over ‘ere and give me a proper poke…
Well…not really, but it is fun playing a game that takesplace in the 1800’s. I really have to give credit to the developers forwanting to put out something different. I’m sure all the major gamecompanies want to put out the next great WWII FPS, and that’s fine anddandy, except for one thing…they’ve been done over and over to thetenth power. GUN is something that hasn’t been done in awhile. In fact,I can’t remember the last Old West game that came out on the PC.
GUN is all over the map when it comes to press reviews. I’ve seen5/10 and 9/10. I guess that’s the beauty of having different opinions.I liked playing the game and I’ll try and do my best to explain why andwhy you may or may not like it.
Game Play/Controls:
First off, GUN has a great storyline. You play as ColtonWhite who after a nice introductory level of hunting, is ambushed on asteamboat and learns that the person who he thought was his father forall these years…is actually not. The game engulfs you from there. Yourmission is two fold. One is to exact revenge on the people thatambushed the steamboat and who killed your Father (Ned) and your friend(who just happens to be an attractive prostitute) Jenny. The other isto find this mysterious item that all these people have died over andfigure out exactly what it does.
Duringyour quest, there are plenty of side missions to complete if you sochoose. Completing them generally earns you money which you can spendon new weapons and weapon upgrades. Some of the upgrades include; speedloaders, more damage and more accuracy. You can even buy a pick axe tomine gold and earn money that way as well. When I finished the game, ittold me I was about 50% complete. I hadn’t completed any of the sidemissions at all. Obviously there was quite a bit more to do still. Idid play a couple of them while in town just to see how they were. Mostof them were pretty quick and to the point. I earned about $10 onaverage for completing them. Might not seem like a lot of money, butkeep in mind the era we’re playing in. $10 is a good amount to puttowards some new horse shoes! I did manage to complete the game withoutupgrading any of my weapons via purchase.
All of the weapons in the game were what you would expect to findduring the 1800’s. There were six shooters, rifles, knives, bow &arrow and even dynamite. As you progress through the game, you’ll comeacross and acquire better weapons. I did enjoy the wide variety ofweapons and how they performed. For example, if you tried shootingsomeone with a pistol, who was too far off, the only thing you wouldaccomplish is pissing him off. Switch to a long rifle and you can takehis right ear off, if you’d like.
I was a bit disappointed when it came to aiming. Headshots werealmost too easy. You would figure they would be harder with a revolverin hand, but they’re actually easier. The cross hairs are so wide, allyou have to do is get the bad guy’s head somewhere in the center ofthose cross hairs and you turned his brains into wallpaper.
GUN is also equipped with a sort of ‘bullet time’. Hey, what gamedoesn’t come with a slow motion feature nowadays??? In GUN, it iscalled ‘quick draw’. Quick draw?? Errrmm….ok. Hitting ‘C’ (default) onyour keyboard goes into slow motion aka ‘quick draw’ time which makestaking out a mass amount of people, easy work. It is only availablewith your pistols though, not on any other weapons. There are mountedweapons you’re able to use as well. The Gatling gun is an early versionof our modern day machine gun. It was pretty fun mowing down enemies asthey kept stupidly walking towards me. The other weapon was the cannon;a great piece of equipment for blowing up buildings or barricades. Thetwo things I didn’t like about it were, the fire rate was waytoo fast and you almost have to hit a person with it or get pretty damnclose to them to be able to kill them with it. Yet, I lob one cannonball inside a building and the entire building comes down.
Mostof the times during the missions, you’ll be on horseback. In thebeginning of the game you’ll learn how to control your horse and it’sdifferent functions. You can make your horse gallop by driving in yourspurs to its sides and even make him rear up on enemies, tramplingthem. I was pretty impressed on how they handled shooting from yourhorse. The horse handles as it should. It doesn’t turn on a dime, butdoes turn and does give you almost a 360 degree field of fire.
One of the enjoyable things of GUN was the ability to go anywhereat anytime in the land available. Even during the ‘main’ mission, ifyou choose to ride into town and start up a side mission you could.
However some of the game play is a bit scripted. For example, ifyou had to meet someone that was holding a horse for you to use, buthad rode up on a different horse, you would have to dismount the oneyou were riding and mount the one he was holding for you. Also, therewere times that I had left Soapy behind and just went to my objectiveindicator. Even though he wasn’t on the ferry when I left, during thecut scene he was on it.
Sound:
The voice-overs were nicely done. I thought I recognized one of theactor’s voice and I still think so to this date, I just can’t place thename right now. A search of the website turns up nothing as well. Ifyou figure out whom it is, post on the forums as I’m curious to see ifI’m right.
Theweapon fire sounded a bit redundant and there wasn’t much of an audibledifference when weapons were fired. Other things such as riding acrossa hard surface, you were able to hear the clip-clop of the horse’sfeet.
A lot of old dialog was used, which also helps draw you into theOld West theme of the game. I was happy when the Indians spoke in theirnative tongue. I’m not saying they were using an accurate or evensomewhat accurate translation, but it sounded good. I really wish theywould have left the Indians talking just like that with subtitles. Ihad to roll my eyes when I heard them speak in English. The spokeEnglish perfectly and sounded like they just graduated from Stanford.
One thing did bug me about being on horseback. For some reason,while on horseback you can’t talk to anyone, even if you’re right nextto them. You have to dismount in order to talk to them and then getback on your horse.
Graphics:
The graphics are like the press reviews of this game, all over themap. The background textures and detail were done pretty well. When itcomes to the characters and people you interact with you can really seein their faces, the hard lives they lived. They did a very good jobwith showing that type of detail. The towns looked nice and when youwalked into one of them, you can see how much detail went intorecreating them accurately.
With that said, there were some major graphicalglitches in the game. I’m not sure how the Q&A department missedsome of these, but they’re really bad. Everything has to do with whilebeing on horseback. While riding, if you looked at other horses, theywould be gliding across the plains instead of galloping. Their hoovesweren’t moving at all. If you changed the angle at which you viewedthem, they’d magically start moving again.
The game had severe frame rate problem when I was on horseback andmaking my horse gallop. It would severely lag and then catch back up.It happened in all different locations and times during game play. Notjust at the level loading or going into a different land as I mightexpect it too.
Lastly, while riding into towns, if you looked down too far, theground and most other detail would disappear and turn into bluebackground. If you shook the camera from side to side, the detail wouldreappear.
All of these glitches happened on more than one occasion and I could replicate them with ease.
Overall:
I’m not sure why the simplistic title of ‘GUN’ for this game. It’salmost too plain and doesn’t seem like it’s going to attract a lot ofattention by the title. (Note to developers: first impressions arehuge.)
The storyline was great as I mentioned. I started playing andcouldn’t wait to move on to the next mission to get closer to theending. I didn’t once wish the game would hurry up and get over. Someof the missions were a bit short, but that was fine in my opinion. Itwas nice to have them different lengths and objectives instead of beingrepetitive.
The side missions are pretty easy, but don’t add much to the gameas a whole. You can go right through the game and not play one andstill succeed quite easily.
I finished this game in 2-3 days. It honestly felt just right. Abit longer and I might have started to want it to end. A bit shorterand I would have felt cheated.
If you want to try something different, depending on its price,this would be something you could feasibly add to your gaming library.That is if you plan on completing 100% of the game. If you just plan on running through it, than make it a rental.
"GUN (PC)" is on sale November 8, 2005 and is rated M. Shooter.
