Gun

""Every Gun Makes It's Own Tune""

Let's face it: playing cowboys and indians is something that just about every young child does at some point in their life. I know I did. This lead to a rather unhealthy obsession with western films, the focal points of the greatest tragedies, romances and gunfights the world has ever seen. Naturally, I became a fan of Clint Eastwood, and I watched with wide eyes as he set up the duel at the end of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'. That scene had atmosphere, so did the whole movie. In fact, if a western movie didn't have atmosphere, it might as well be considered a failure. Having never played a decent game set in the wild west, I was overjoyed about a large world you could roam around in, performing all sorts of cool cowboy tricks. I had dreams of slowly walking up the streets, pulling my pistol on the first guy who looked at me funny. It was a game I very much looked forward too. And while it doesn't fully live up to my expectations, or really do anything inventive, I really enjoyed playing this game for the simple fact that it was set in the old west. If there is one thing this game has- it's atmosphere.

Colton White, and his father, Ned, are hunters for a steamboat company that travels the Missouri River. While in Montana, their steamboat is attacked by renegades by the orders of a no good priest. The ship is doomed from the start, and so Ned thrusts into Colton's hand a token for the Alhambra Saloon, a cathouse in Dodge City. He then reveals that he isn't his father, and throws him overboard to escape the brutes attacking. Colton wakes up a few days later, setting off for Dodge in search of the priest. All he can trust is the gun in his hand, and this his story. His travels will take him all over the old west; Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas and even New Mexico. Don't be fooled by all these states though, the overall ma is relatively small, nothing at all to be compared to the vastness of something like San Andreas. Along the way, Colton will make some interesting locals, all leading up to a great wild west adventure.

The controls are done fairly well, and although the camera can run into snags here and there, it's very well done. You can draw your weapon with the R1 button, pressing it again to fire. There's an a reticule on the screen that you manually move over your target. It changes color depending on what you're aiming at, so if it's an enemy, it'll be red, allies will be green, and neutrals are blue. It's pretty helpful when you're about to make some quick shots in heavy action. Pressing X will you make you jump, Circle allows you to rotate between your pistols and another weapon; either a shotgun, sharpshooter, rifle or bow and arrow. There are also thrown weapons and melee weapons. There isn't much use for the thrown weapons, but the melee weapons are awesome for close range, used with the Box button. There's nothing much cooler than dicing up your opponent with a tomahawk atop an out of control stagecoach. Ducking can be done with the L2 button, as this makes you less of a target. A lot of the gameplay takes place on top of a horse, and the game doesn't falter a single bit. You can still shoot while atop your horse, you're just moving at a faster pace. The horse battles with a lot of enemies charging at you can be extremely frenetic, and they're usually the high points of the game. The horse moves very fluidly and feels very realistic, and it cane even jump over low obstacles and perform trample attacks to crush enemies. You can spur your horse using the L2 button, but spurring it too much will cause it to tire out, and eventually die. This never happened once to me, on account that the game world is so small.

The coolest part of the game-play is the ability to enter into quickdraw mode. Remember that scene at towards the end of 'Unforgiven' where Clint Eastwood shoots up a whole bar full of guys without once getting shot himself? He must've been in quickdraw mode to be able to take all those guys down so quickly. This feature basically slows time down, allowing you to take out several bad guys in just a few seconds. Arrows appear on the screen, and when you push in their respective directions, it will place your cursor right over the nearest bad guy. It's extremely useful, and always handy in a pinch. It can also make the game incredibly easy, so I would suggest starting off on normal or even hard mode. It'll make the game much more challenging, and therefore, much more rewarding. Playing on hard will also extend the game's life, since it can easily be beaten in a single sitting of no more than 8-10 hours. This is a little disappointing, as there is so much that could have been done within a world that should have been designed much larger. There are a good number of side quests, but ultimately, they do very little to extend the life of the game for a significant period. To the game's credit, it is cool to defend a town from oncoming attackers, hunt wolves up in the mountains and chase wanted men through the desert. The missions, for the most part, require a heavy trigger finger, and an occasional bit of patience. My favorite missions was a stealth mission, in which Colton has to stash horses underneath a bridge to stage a prison breakout. He sneaks around the town, taking out guards with a bow and arrow in able to collect the horses. Once you have the horses, you've got to escape from the town with everyone shooting at you. It's a really cool experience, unfortunately, many missions are just run and gun, pausing here or there to blow something up with TNT.

Despite some glaring problems with the gameplay, the graphics are top notch. The character details are amazing, the gun fights are great and the environments are very pretty. The environments (atmosphere) basically make this game. Lush fields, hot springs, tall mountains, wide open lakes, desert canyons and rolling tumbleweed really take you in for that authentic wild west experience. There's plenty of wild life as well, bison, wolves and wild horses dot the landscape. Unfortunately, there just isn't a lot to do within these cool environments. The characters are equally impressive. They all look like dirty, rough and tough cowboys that are always up for a scrape. Big Boss wanna-be MacGruder is never without his cigar, a stream of smoke following him wherever he goes. Colton changes outifts at several points in the game, and I'll bet you it reminds you of a western movie from somewhere. Each character has a lot of personality, something important in any wild west story. The voices are backed by a mostly Hollywood cast, so the acting is very consistent and good. The sound effects are excellent, gunshots are sharp and crisp, you can even make out the distinct sound of shooting a gun out of an enemies hand. The music is good as well, very low key and subtle while not on a mission, but it can become very exciting.

All in all, Gun is nothing to write home about. It doesn't try anything new, and quite frankly, at time it felt like I was playing a game that came much earlier in this generation, rather than something towards the end of the cycle. Unless you're a big western aficionado like me, I would strongly advise that all gamers just give this one a rent. Even if you complete all the side quests, you could beat it in a day. Hard mode is ok, but it's still the same game. Don't get me wrong, it's a very fun game, but if you're looking for the very best PS2 games to complete your collection, this one isn't one of them. It's good, but certainly no Leone masterpiece.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/06