Gun
I call her Vera. She is my very favorite gun.
Tags: Gun Categories: PC Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Dec 29th, 2005
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gun (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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Neversoft’s bread and butter since the early days of the original Playstation has always been the Tony Hawk series, and one of the reasons those games were so good was because Neversoft really “got” the whole skateboarding culture. It seems fitting then, that their only departure from Tony Hawk (aside from the original PSOne Spider-Man game) succeeds largely because it “gets” the Wild West. And while the gameplay isn’t perfect or even all that spectacular, the presentation is so phenomenal that it really kicks the game up a notch.
This is the Wild West as we all imagine it peiced together from all the best Western movies and TV shows of our time. Everything you could imagine has been stuffed in here: an expanding railroad beset by “Injuns”, a whorehouse rowdied up by drunk customers, good old-fashioned poker games (complete with cheatin’), ambushes on steamboats and trains, hunting outlaws for your bounty… the list goes on.
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The game’s sound is one of the big proponents of this great presentation. The voice acting in Gun is quite possibly the best in any game ever. Professional actors like Thomas Jane and Kris Kristofferson really are superb here, and the entire cast and excellent writing join together for a gruff, gritty treatment to the Wild West theme that really works beautifully. The soundtrack is also very appropriate, mixing the creaky old violin and rusty harmonica to create a sound that captures the setting perfectly.
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Graphically, the game is a mixed bag. Artistically, the game is gorgeous, but it often fails on a technical level. The landcapes overall look lush and pretty, but are marred by bland and repetitive textures. Some of the characters are detailed and animate extremely well, while others are laughable in how bad they look. In fact, animations are often so bad it’s like the framerate shot down to five frames per second, but only on a few of the characters, and at other times characters jerk and flail their arms about comically for no good reason while they talk. It’s a shame, because these flaws really cripple what is otherwise a pretty good-looking game.
As for the gameplay, it’s a mixed bag, too. Many people are calling this Grand Theft Auto: Wild West, but that’s not really true. While there are plenty of minigames, distractions, and side-quests to partake in here, they’re all largely self-contained, and the game is missing the feel of a living, breathing world that you can do just about anything in, which is one of the biggest strengths of the GTA series. And while horseriding here is very nicely-done, the gunplay isn’t all that satisfying.
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That may be largely because of the controls. I really got the feeling from the get-go that this was not a game that was really intended for the PC, and my suspicions were confirmed when I plugged an Xbox 360 controller in my USB port. Compared to the gamepad, the mouse and keyboard controls feel stiff and complicated, and the fact that the game heavily relies on auto-aim really points to a title meant for consoles. This added to the game’s graphical shortcomings really make me think that people would probably be better off getting the Xbox or PS2 versions of the game.
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Still, for PC gamers looking for a taste of the Wild West, this is as good as it gets. Any fan of old Clint Eastwood and John Wayne films absolutely needs to grab this title, as it is quite simply the best representation of the Western genre to ever appear in a videogame.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Excellent presentation captures the Western theme brilliantly + Possibly the best voice-acting ever in a videogame + Plenty to do, and all of it pretty fun |
8.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- The graphics are uneven, and often even a bit ugly - For a game called "Gun", the gunplay here is kinda' weak - This game wasn't meant for a mouse and keyboard, and probably not for the PC either |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Gun has its fair share of problems, but the presentation is so brilliant it overshadows them. Any fan of Westerns really needs to get this game, although they might want to get it on a console. | |
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Tags: Gun
Posted by Jake McNeill on Dec 29th, 2005 and is filed under PC Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
