Written 15.08.2009 - Uploaded 30.09.2009
Gun is yet another random purchase. It touches the one setting that is on the one hand quite popular in the movie industry and on the other hand very rare in games. I'm of course talking about the wild west where men are men, life is cheap and gold is god. I haven't really gotten that much into the setting yet, but Deadwood definitely has sparked my interest. Hence, Gun.
Gun is yet again a game that is stronger as an experience rather than a game. It puts you in the west, gives you a nice area to move freely around and do plot missions and side missions. There isn't anything spectacular about the game concept here, and original ideas are down to zero. So what's there in Gun to make it a game? Atmosphere. It succeeds in capturing the theme of westerns in more than one way, and right off the bat, too. For starters, this game is surprisingly good looking for a PlayStation 2 game, and it is indeed a joy just to ride around the grounds looking at sights. The playing area is large enough, including a couple of towns and a mine as its main focal points. There's also a ranch and an indian trading post but the rest is mostly just beautiful landscape. With a horse it takes a few minutes to ride from one end to another.
Game mechanics in Gun are right on spot. If you have seen any westerns at all, you'll know the battles are about hiding behind objects, popping out to attack and back in to reload. Well, most of the time anyway. And the guns! I like old guns, especially rifles and shotguns with their rather long reload times, and Gun has all this greatly integrated into gameplay. There isn't anything new here really: you can look around corners and duck behind objects to shield yourself, then pop out quickly, aim quickly and shoot away. Colton can take some hits, but getting caught in some serious fire gets him killed pretty fast. The only gripe I had with the controls is that aiming is a bit too hard to do accurately and quickly. This doesn't become a problem when you can pick the pace, but in some defense missions it gets a bit frustrating at times. Also, aiming from horseback is freaking impossible. Then again, I haven't tried it in the real life, so maybe it really is hard. The enemies seem to be pretty good at it tho'.
The plot, while it's nothing much to write home about, serves its function. It's a story of revenge and greed, most fitting for the theme. The game doesn't have much dialog, and most of the story is proceeded through gunfire. The plot missions though, they are really golden. The game has everything: stealing horses in the dark, robbing a train, rescuing the damsel in distress from a saloon, sneaking out of a fortress etc. Each mission is a unique experience, and you can almost smell the sweat and gunpowder. There's just one thing I felt really didn't fit in: boss fights. Whereas your average foes drop with a few shots or one good headshot, the bosses are very resilient and typically unfairly accurate with their weapons. There were two boss battles in the game I found especially frustrating.
In addition to plot missions, there's a bunch of side missions to do. Doing them helps out, because they raise Colton's stats and of course fill his wallet with dollars. Side missions aren't as magnificent as the plot missions, and they are a lot shorter. This I find a good thing once again. Also, not all of them are about going somewhere and shooting the bad guys. There's even side missions where Colton has to herd cattle. Each side mission typically takes just a few minutes, which I found to be a good duration for them. Compare this to some of GTA: Vice City's missions which were annoying and pretty long, and you can definitely see where the advantage lies.
As such I don't have much else to say. Gun takes great advantage of its theme and is overall a very solid gaming experience. It's not a game that compels you to play, but whenever you do, the atmosphere is thick. With better plotwriting and some more thought put into boss fights, Gun would be your perfect western game. Even as it is now, it's an excellent game and one of the few bearing this theme. Since it's not addictive like, say GTA: Vice City was, there's definitely something missing from it, but I can't really say what that would be. My time with Gun was time well spent.