Desolate, harsh landscape, cliff flanked gorges and semi deserts with melancholy sunsets proves that lush tropical jungles and sparkling waters are not indispensable for a beautiful computer game.
Gun is a third person action-adventure game based on a free roaming model set around the late 19th century Old west. It is the post American civil war period with its Native Americans, Pony trails, railroad expansion, gold rush and the cowboys.
Activision and Surreal Software were once working on a wild-west title christened "Gunslinger", tentatively scheduled for 2001 release on PC and PS2. It was later picked up by Sony for PS2 and then scrapped altogether for unknown reasons. Which makes Gun, Activision’s second attempt at a western, this time with Neversoft as the developer.
This game boasts of Hollywood talent right from script to voice acting and music. It is based on Mask of Zorro co-writer Randall Jahnson’s script; as the story begins, the player steps into the shoes of the hunter Colton White who finds himself deprived of his father and in possession of a relic and his rifle. The quest for vengeance and the mystery of the relic takes him alongside real life gunslingers, ex-civil war soldiers and native-American Apache tribes. It is a linear storyline about White forming alliances and blasting through waves of enemies, defending positions, operating vehicle mounted weapons, protecting civilians and undertaking the odd stealth based mission. The game has got enough headshots, dismembering, sadistic scalping and cheeky dialogs.
Befitting its title, there are a truckload of weapons to choose from including Pistols (with bullet-time styled quick draw mode), Rifles, Shotguns, Sharpshooters (sniper), Melee (stabbing weapons), Thrown (dynamite and Molotov) and Bows.
The player is mostly packing much more than he can ever hope to use even in the wildest shootouts. Except for rare missions, one can easily complete the whole game without resorting to any weapon other than the rifle, which gets more lethal with every upgrade and completed mission.
In any case, most of the shooting part felt like playing the arcade Virtua Cop; all that one has to do is move the crosshair somewhere near the bad guy and close the trigger. The bullets always seem to find the opponent’s head as if the poor fellow’s head had some magnetic properties for lead. The “Head shotâ€, “Weapon Shotâ€, “Combo†and like adjectives that flash on the tacky heads-up-display only serve to enhance the arcade feel.
If that was not enough, the bad-guy AI is extremely lame and their best attempt at survival is shooting, sidestepping and yelling, decidedly retro. For the player’s convenience, unlimited boxes of ammo are thrown around liberally in addition to the inexhaustible ammo pistols that he is already carrying.
Besides the main storyline missions, there are the 'relatively' peaceful distractions such as hunting wild animals, playing poker games, working for a rancher managing his cattle and as horseback messenger on the pony express trail. The run-and-gun kind of side missions involve playing the long-arm of law maintaining town peace or as a bounty hunter after wanted criminals. These side-missions improve the player stats and provide money for purchasing weapon, health and speed upgrades. But they are not very appealing once the novelty factor wears out and repetitiveness steps in.
Aimless free roaming with not a soul in sight has a limited appeal too. It must have been a challenge to develop a free roaming model around vast isolated landscape and the developers have done well to throw in random gunfights with marauding bandits. However these shootouts never show any variation whatsoever and as the game progresses one feels like simply ignoring the bandits and moving on from the scene instead, which is easily done. Moreover, there can be no justification for having practically deserted towns. The only way one can see some town activity is by killing the odd passerby and raising a ruckus. As the town’s patience eventually breaks down, you get to mow down a weak town posse after which everything is back to the quiet little ghost town again. The storyline is good till it lasts as the twists come at a breakneck pace but before any of the characters could be built, either they are dead or the game itself is over, leaving behind an empty feeling.
The voice acting is top notch but some really good background music (Christopher Lennertz) is wasted by repetitiveness and poor implementation of dynamic music, not always in step with game action. Take the instance of the cow ranch side-mission, in tune to music that sounds like an old west movie's theme song and you wonder whether you are herding cows of performing a victory lap!
Besides the obvious weaknesses, the game also has a lot of rough edges. At times, invisible boundaries put the breaks on free roaming. The controls are a jumbled mess (without even a straightforward weapon cycle key to manage the plethora of guns). The interactive NPCs stand with huge obnoxious labels hovering on their heads at all times (tagging them as shopkeeper or sheriff and so on). The player-NPC interaction cut-scenes are reminiscent of 90s games with the NPCs gesticulating wildly, nowhere fitting in with the dialogs. The graphics are not exactly up to the contemporary standards either.
The Good Part
Without a shred of doubt though, the developers hit bull’s-eye with horse riding portions. The riding element with its great visuals and sounds is simply amazing, a treat for PC gamers. Riding and shooting makes for some thrilling action sequences; you can shoot from horseback to dispatch your enemies or shoot the horse from under the mounted adversaries and trample them to their doom; perform picture perfect leaps over obstacles or learn to herd the cows, it’s great fun. Ride on a trot or gallop hard but if you push the horse too far, its health will start to decline and you might find yourself flat on your face. But then you are never too far from a horse and can always find 'stray horses' roaming all around the canyons for taking! One would have wished for a tighter horse management in a western. Purchased horse persistent with reloads and mission completions would have surely added to the feel without bringing in any cumbersome management element. All said the horseback experience is still too sweet to be missed. The game rides on the strength its horses. So much so, one wonders if the developers invested all their time and skill in the horses and forgot everything else.
In conclusion, Gun is unpolished, it’s short (no multiplayer mode either), it has many possibilities flushed down the drain, but its presentation captures the spirit of spaghetti westerns like no other game on PC; perhaps the best since Lucas Arts’ classic, Outlaws.
Screenshots as played on AMD64 2800+, 512MB RAM and Radeon 9600Pro 128MB.
Gun is a third person action-adventure game based on a free roaming model set around the late 19th century Old west. It is the post American civil war period with its Native Americans, Pony trails, railroad expansion, gold rush and the cowboys.
Activision and Surreal Software were once working on a wild-west title christened "Gunslinger", tentatively scheduled for 2001 release on PC and PS2. It was later picked up by Sony for PS2 and then scrapped altogether for unknown reasons. Which makes Gun, Activision’s second attempt at a western, this time with Neversoft as the developer.
This game boasts of Hollywood talent right from script to voice acting and music. It is based on Mask of Zorro co-writer Randall Jahnson’s script; as the story begins, the player steps into the shoes of the hunter Colton White who finds himself deprived of his father and in possession of a relic and his rifle. The quest for vengeance and the mystery of the relic takes him alongside real life gunslingers, ex-civil war soldiers and native-American Apache tribes. It is a linear storyline about White forming alliances and blasting through waves of enemies, defending positions, operating vehicle mounted weapons, protecting civilians and undertaking the odd stealth based mission. The game has got enough headshots, dismembering, sadistic scalping and cheeky dialogs.
Befitting its title, there are a truckload of weapons to choose from including Pistols (with bullet-time styled quick draw mode), Rifles, Shotguns, Sharpshooters (sniper), Melee (stabbing weapons), Thrown (dynamite and Molotov) and Bows.
The player is mostly packing much more than he can ever hope to use even in the wildest shootouts. Except for rare missions, one can easily complete the whole game without resorting to any weapon other than the rifle, which gets more lethal with every upgrade and completed mission.
In any case, most of the shooting part felt like playing the arcade Virtua Cop; all that one has to do is move the crosshair somewhere near the bad guy and close the trigger. The bullets always seem to find the opponent’s head as if the poor fellow’s head had some magnetic properties for lead. The “Head shotâ€, “Weapon Shotâ€, “Combo†and like adjectives that flash on the tacky heads-up-display only serve to enhance the arcade feel.
If that was not enough, the bad-guy AI is extremely lame and their best attempt at survival is shooting, sidestepping and yelling, decidedly retro. For the player’s convenience, unlimited boxes of ammo are thrown around liberally in addition to the inexhaustible ammo pistols that he is already carrying.
Besides the main storyline missions, there are the 'relatively' peaceful distractions such as hunting wild animals, playing poker games, working for a rancher managing his cattle and as horseback messenger on the pony express trail. The run-and-gun kind of side missions involve playing the long-arm of law maintaining town peace or as a bounty hunter after wanted criminals. These side-missions improve the player stats and provide money for purchasing weapon, health and speed upgrades. But they are not very appealing once the novelty factor wears out and repetitiveness steps in.
Aimless free roaming with not a soul in sight has a limited appeal too. It must have been a challenge to develop a free roaming model around vast isolated landscape and the developers have done well to throw in random gunfights with marauding bandits. However these shootouts never show any variation whatsoever and as the game progresses one feels like simply ignoring the bandits and moving on from the scene instead, which is easily done. Moreover, there can be no justification for having practically deserted towns. The only way one can see some town activity is by killing the odd passerby and raising a ruckus. As the town’s patience eventually breaks down, you get to mow down a weak town posse after which everything is back to the quiet little ghost town again. The storyline is good till it lasts as the twists come at a breakneck pace but before any of the characters could be built, either they are dead or the game itself is over, leaving behind an empty feeling.
The voice acting is top notch but some really good background music (Christopher Lennertz) is wasted by repetitiveness and poor implementation of dynamic music, not always in step with game action. Take the instance of the cow ranch side-mission, in tune to music that sounds like an old west movie's theme song and you wonder whether you are herding cows of performing a victory lap!
Besides the obvious weaknesses, the game also has a lot of rough edges. At times, invisible boundaries put the breaks on free roaming. The controls are a jumbled mess (without even a straightforward weapon cycle key to manage the plethora of guns). The interactive NPCs stand with huge obnoxious labels hovering on their heads at all times (tagging them as shopkeeper or sheriff and so on). The player-NPC interaction cut-scenes are reminiscent of 90s games with the NPCs gesticulating wildly, nowhere fitting in with the dialogs. The graphics are not exactly up to the contemporary standards either.
The Good Part
Without a shred of doubt though, the developers hit bull’s-eye with horse riding portions. The riding element with its great visuals and sounds is simply amazing, a treat for PC gamers. Riding and shooting makes for some thrilling action sequences; you can shoot from horseback to dispatch your enemies or shoot the horse from under the mounted adversaries and trample them to their doom; perform picture perfect leaps over obstacles or learn to herd the cows, it’s great fun. Ride on a trot or gallop hard but if you push the horse too far, its health will start to decline and you might find yourself flat on your face. But then you are never too far from a horse and can always find 'stray horses' roaming all around the canyons for taking! One would have wished for a tighter horse management in a western. Purchased horse persistent with reloads and mission completions would have surely added to the feel without bringing in any cumbersome management element. All said the horseback experience is still too sweet to be missed. The game rides on the strength its horses. So much so, one wonders if the developers invested all their time and skill in the horses and forgot everything else.
In conclusion, Gun is unpolished, it’s short (no multiplayer mode either), it has many possibilities flushed down the drain, but its presentation captures the spirit of spaghetti westerns like no other game on PC; perhaps the best since Lucas Arts’ classic, Outlaws.
Screenshots as played on AMD64 2800+, 512MB RAM and Radeon 9600Pro 128MB.
