Gun

If Gun were two or three times larger and longer, it could have been truly great. It just seems to move way too fast. I wish the timing of the game was more like GTA or Mafia, and there was more to do. Even better would be a completely free-form western role-playing game. A Morrowind style game for the Wild West would be perfect.

They needed to do a little more research on the real Wild West, too. They did do research of course, but as they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Gun mixes elements from many historical eras of the American West with no concern for reality. It is set in 1880, but you have 1830s mountain men with percussion rifles and keelboats right alongside 1870s Colt Peacemakers and 1880s lever action shotguns. And 1850s Volcanic Repeating Pistols being presented as superb state of the art weapons in 1880 is laughable. The Volcanics were abandoned in 1860 as they were too underpowered. The basic design became the basis for the Henry & Winchester rifles. Also, Colton's arm tattooing is from the Eastern Woodlands Iroquois of New York and Ontario. Not the Apache of New Mexico.

Another thing that I HATE about Gun are the huge guiding words everywhere. For God's sake, let me find the wanted poster or the shopkeeper or the Marshall or Hoodoo Brown by myself. Don't show me huge words floating in the sky. If you really think most players are too impatient to search for themselves at least give me the option to turn the guide words off. The same goes for the constant prompting telling me what to do next. I can play my own game, thanks very much.

I love the blood and crsing myself, but I would also appreciate an option to turn off blood and profanity for when my kids play.

I also would prefer a primarily first person viewpoint with the ability to go third person as an option. Seeing my character on screen knocks me right out of the feeling that I am really there in the game world. Sure, it's nice to have third person for screenshots and checking out the costume, but playing first person is much more immersive.

Finally, making the renegades look like undead zombies was just stupid and probably meant to lure in kids who won't play a game that doesn't have fantasy or supernatural elements. I wish the renegades just looked like scummy desperadoes in tattered cavalry uniforms, and not like walking corpses.

But, all in all, having the chance to ride a horse and fight outlaws and wild Indians is worth putting up with all these problems. I really love Gun. I just wish it was bigger and you had more freedom and things to do.

i just bought this a month ago and i beat the game in about 5 days. i had a good time playing as colton white(Tomas Jane). his voice was also in the punisher movie and game. he does a great job on acting in the punisher and he was good in this game. i loved all of the boss battles in this game...it was perfect. the graphics were good and the sound effects were my favorite! this game is almost as fun as narc the game is. i enjoyed it because it was not loaded with sexual themes or strong language. i did not even find it to be that gory. riding the horse has good control system as of all the other things you do. this game was perfect and me and my best friend Scott love western games and most of all the movies!!! there is a huge chance that you will love this game forever so if your a western fan then you have to get out there and BUY THIS!!!!!!!!!!! that is all so HAVE FUN!!!

This game, in my opinion, was incredible. As a kid i never got into cowboys and indians, but this game got me. it had an incredibly, smart, cool story that took you all over the wild west doing everything from barroom gunfights to assaulting a town with a cannon. the locales and environments are stunning and beautiful, from the wide open grazing plains, to the desert expanse, to the rocky mountains, it had it all, the map was a bit small, i would have preferred a much larger map, but what was there was amazing. tthe acting was top notch and Thomas Jane really nailed the vengeful vigilante gunslinger of the wild west, even the background characters had interesting things to say and said them well. the gameplay was fun, deep, easy, and had a strange ability to stay fresh and avoid repetitiveness. Now the few problems, length for one. While it had a great story and some interesting side missions, the story was far too short, as are the side missions, so after a few hours you are left with a wide open world and nothing to do. The side quests could really be improved on to the level of a gta game. Also the map, the map was far to small for my taste and after a few of the main missions was completely explored. it also only consisted of 2 towns and a tiny few side areas that are only active during missions coresponding with them. GTA is another great example for Gun to strive for, it needed a much larger map with a living world with animals, people, multiple towns and settlements and maybe more locales, perhaps forests, and snowy mountains, larger plains and just an all around bigger world. i thought this was an incredible game with great graphics, gameplay, story and just about everything else. just needed to be a bit longer and bigger but besides that, gold. i highly recommend this to anyone yet to play this game, go pick it up, its cheap by now and well worth it. im eagerly looking forward to Gun 2 and i pray it comes! Whoever was taking names for a petition for Gun 2 on the message boards, add mine!

Gun has so much going for it, but it's such a short game that as soon are you build up your stats and really get going...there's no more of it to play. Which is quite annoying.

You play as Colton White (Thomas Jane) in a free-roaming western landscape. You can grab whatever horse you want, kill who you feel and take-on a fair amount of side-missions if you feel like taking a break from the main story, which is itself interesting but way too short.

The villains are all evil bastards but brilliantly acted by the likes of Brad Dourif, Ron Pearlman and Lance Henriksen. Other actors with cool voices like Kris Kristofferson and Tom Skerritt fill out supporting roles and the dialogue and cut-scenes are all pretty good and avoid the unnatural, forced feel that many video games have. Many of the characters and situations could have been fleshed out more but they merely conveniently contribute to the slight 'search for a hidden goldmine' plot.

The action of the game is brilliantly done (the controls take a little practice though), with great use of slow-motion when blowing large chunks of bad guy heads off. Weapons range from twin guns, rifles and shotguns to swords, bows, dynamite and whisky bombs. You can even scalp people, but it adds nothing to stats, so it's kind of pointless. Side missions can either be errand boy tasks, rounding up cattle or killing random bad guys. The destruction factor could have been higher, but you could say that about a lot of games.

The actual gameplay universe is quite small too. But it still feels superficially expansive. With loads of little valleys, railroad tracks and and coyote trails it can be fun exploring, but you'll get familiar with it too quickly.

My fave thing about this game however is the music. It's a shame it's not available on CD because it really is exciting and echoes John Barry's main theme to Dances With Wolves. With so many lesser video game scores getting CD releases these days I wouldn't be too surprised if the Gun score came out eventually.

Add it all up and you have a fun, if all too slight, game that is worth it if you can pick it up half price (like I did) but not a full RRP. If only they made it longer, we could have a classic.

I'd heard many a rave opinion about this game, it's been sizzled by everyone I talked to who knew about it. Then again, they just happened to work at Gamestop and were trying to sell it to me. In any case, in a few words, great rental, not worth $50.

First off, this game is violent. I don't mean, guts coming out someone's mouth grotesque, but rather stylized violence in the cut-scenes. The intensity doesn't come in what they show you, there's worse in other games, it comes in the cinematic way its presented. For a more mature player, the scenes have a thrilling sense to them, not because there's murder, but rather it's done with style. Think Kill Bill: varying degrees of overdoing violence, so its not as believable. You have people get killed in the cut-scenes, and some of it is brutal, but it's the idea of a throat getting slashed that makes it intense, not actually showing it because the graphics engine isn't really that good.

I know I dwelt a lot on the cut-scenes, and that's because I find them the best part of the game. They're brilliantly written with an excellent cast. The dialog is natural, and feels natural coming out of the actors' mouths.

The plot, unfortunately, is very thin. Without giving anything away, the story could have been fleshed out much more. The first "twist" in the story isn't much of one because it happens within the first hour. By then, you're already 14% into the game. The game moves very VERY fast. It operates in the free roaming/mission manner made popular by Grand Theft Auto. It progresses the story along really quickly, a little too quickly in my opinion, but quickly nonetheless.

Along with the root story missions, you have several side quests you take to improve the character's stats and to make money to buy upgrades. These themselves are what make up a bulk of the game, and what bring it down. These side quests become repetitive after a while since you're doing the same thing over and over again: Find something and kill the bad guys; Get on a horse, kill someone; escort someone, kill everyone else. You pretty much become a murderous errand boy. Yeah, that's fun and all for the first hour, but the game play's shallowness becomes apparent.

In short, there's too much story that this game can hold. The characters are all interesting, the story is deep, there're twists and turns, and stuff shown at the beginning reappears later on for an "Ahhh, I see" moment for the player. Unfortunately, the game is just too short. It could have been a great epic with a little more polish. It felt like it needed a few more months in developing to really feel finished. Rent it Friday, play it, finish it, return it Monday, and you can go on with the rest of your week.