Gun: I've Got A Problem Solver, And His Name is Revolver

Sales figures have shown that gamers have experienced a form of Grand Theft Auto fatigue. The success of the expansive free-range 3rd person shooter genre popularized by the Grand Theft Auto series has caused many companies to delve into the genre and release their own games. Like World War II based shooters, there are good games like the aforementioned GTA series, Mercenaries, and a few others; as well as some bad ones like 50 Cent: Bulletproof. Gun is one of those games which is on the better side of the fence, though not without its own problems.


Story

You are Colton White, the son of a trapper for a riverboat that travels along the Missouri River during the late 1800's. After returning from an outing to trap game, you return to the riverboat only to see it attacked by natives led by some greasy slime ball posing as a priest. The man who raised you reveals that he isn't your father just before he's killed by an explosion on the boat. You escape only to find yourself caught up in the events surrounding the riverboat attack.

The story is fantastic. It's believable, it runs at a brisk pace, and it has many twists and turns. My only complaint is that some mysteries aren't exactly wrapped up as cleanly as you'd like and there are some issues with the dates and years of the story. Overall, I think that there will be many people who will blow through the storyline just to see what happens to Colton.


Gameplay

The core of the gameplay in Gun is to blow away your enemies with your impressive arsenal of weapons. These weapons range from pistols, to rifles, to shotguns, throwing axes, and even more insanely powerful weapons like cannons. Gun is a 3rd person shooter primarily, but your performance will grant you privilege to use a first person "quick draw" mode that acts as a bullet time type feature. In quick draw mode, you can automatically retarget as well as aim for head shots or other precision shots. The quicker you finish off your enemies, the longer you can stay in quick draw mode. You keep yourself alive by drinking out of a flask of some brown liquid, which I'm sure makes you feel all warm inside.

In order to find out Colton's fate, you have to go through the main storyline missions. At the beginning, they're mostly tutorials, but towards the end you'll be left trying to fend off wave after wave of enemies, in some cases against the clock. Most of the time it's your hide that's on the line, although there are quite a few missions where a non-player character or object like a stagecoach might need defending as well. Many of the main storyline missions, while incredibly fun and challenging, come down to the same basic formula of clear out all the bad guys as quickly as possible before they destroy you or something valuable. There are quite a few variations on this theme and Activision does a great job of mixing it up for this single gameplay element.

Gun is also a free roaming game. In addition to finishing the main story, you can perform other tasks and odd jobs all along the region like hunting, serving as a deputy, hunting down wanted criminals and a few other tasks. Some of these tasks can be pretty difficult, especially some of the pony express missions, however most of them are like the main storyline missions, which consist of shooting your foes while keeping yourself upright. You do this for money, which can be exchanged for weapon and equipment upgrades. They allow your bullets to do more damage or let you reload a specific weapon type faster.

Given the free roaming style, you can also wreak havoc on a town. The more townsfolk and/or animals you kill, the lower the town patience meter will get. Once it gets to a low point, the town posse of about 4-5 well-armed and tough to take out men will hunt you down. If you escape town or manage to kill off the posse, you earn another chance with the townsfolk. While the posse can be challenging, it's pretty easy to keep your nose clean and the posse invariably doesn't pose the same type of threat the cops do in the Grand Theft Auto games. There's never a bounty placed on your head, nor does the posse ever come after you outside of the city limits. It's rather disappointing.

The AI is pretty decent in this game. Many enemies will wait you out, while others will take pot shots at you like a poor man's kill.switch. Every once in a while you'll see some sloppiness with the AI scripts, especially when there are lots of enemies on the screen. Many of them will just rush you or take predictable stances. However in the main storyline there are many "bosses" that have some pretty crafty AI and will make you think on your feet.

While the gameplay is really fun, it's far from perfect. First, it relies too heavily on the quick shot mode. It feels as if most of the missions require you to use quick shot mode at least half the time if not much more. It seems way overdone in many regards. Second, there are no perpetual side missions or activities. Unless you keep on shooting up a town and squaring off against the town posse, there's never really a perpetual threat. You never get to just be a deputy over and over or just live in the bars playing poker. Instead it's all mission based and is over before you really get a chance to get into it. Finally, the gameplay is really short in general. The main storyline missions can be completed in about a day if you're dedicated, and the side missions in even less time.


Controls

The controls in Gun are decently configured. The configuration is that of many other 3rd person shooters. Most of the main actions are implemented through the four colored face buttons, while weapon switching is offloaded to the black button. There are a few annoying controls that are left to the dpad, such as switching within the same class of weapon. Also recovering health is left to the up button on the dpad. Still, the health recovery has quite a bit of lag anyway to pull out your flask and back one. The controls respond really well, even on a wireless controller that can add its fair share of lag.


Graphics

The graphics in Gun are stunning to say the least. With a game set in the wild west, I was expecting some great backgrounds, and Activision delivered big time. There are some background scenes during standard gameplay that just make you want to stop and admire where you are. The sun rises, and sets, but the darkness really never gets too dark, which is unfortunately unrealistic in that era. The character models, while not the gold standard for the Xbox, are pretty decent too. Cutscenes seem pretty realistic, though facial expressions rarely change on the fly. The framerate is also way above average. While facing hordes of enemies and projectiles, the game fails to slow down at all. Overall, it feels smooth and balanced graphically.


Sound

As good as the graphics in Gun are, the sound might be even better. Gun lacks any kind of musical score since it really doesn't fit well in this setting, however it makes up for it with a solid voice acting performance by its cast. I've found that portraying this era leads to many forced and overdramatized performances. A character like Colton can really be overacted because of his Clint Eastwood like demeanor. Still, the voice acting of Colton and the other cast of characters really brings the story to life. The sound effects are kind of a mixed bag. The ambiance is very good, especially in town, but some other sound effects like the galloping horse really doesn't sound authentic.


Replay Value

Sadly, Gun doesn't have much replay value at all. While Gun lets you roam as freely as you can in other GTA-style games, there just isn't much out there other than to stare at scenery. With such a huge expansive area like the Wild West, I can see the issues that would arise, but why not throw in more wild animals, attacks by the natives, or other constant challenges. In addition, the Many of the minigames and side missions are over before you know it. I really liked playing the poker minigame, but once you defeat everyone, it's all over. The same goes for the Wanted List and Deputy missions. Why can't these always be available? It could have been a constant side mission like the gang wars were in San Andreas. Admitted it would really mess with the economy of the game, but the upgrade system is a joke anyways.

Sadly, as fun and authentic looking as Gun is, it cries out for a sequel to truly do it justice in the gameplay and replay value departments. If you subscribe to Gamefly or another rental service, this game should make it into your queue. Otherwise, pick it up on the cheap, blast your way through it and put it up for sale again. If you're late on the scene like I was with Gun, you should find plenty of copies at a very low price simply because there just isn't that much to do. But overall, it's a game that fans of the GTA games should at least give a shot.