GUN Xbox Review

As the developer of the popular Tony Hawks series of games and nothing else of much note in recent years, the western themed GUN isn’t the first game you’d think Neversoft would make next. The game has been in secret development for years, but have the masters of the skate park done justice to the Wild West? A setting that bizarrely isn’t featured too often in games.

Rockstar’s representation of the Wild West: Red Dead Revolver was a hugely entertaining shooter, but Activision’s version is more bloody, more epic and if you are a fan of all things cowboy, probably the better game too.

After a hunt with your father Ned, which introduces you to the games basic controls, you’ll soon learn the basic gist of what sort of things you’ll be getting up to in GUN. The game has an overall linear story as well as plenty of side missions, which you can undertake to improve a multitude of your own or your horse’s stats. Much of the time you’ll be galloping around the expansive environment on horseback taking down wanted criminals in return for a lovely cash bonus, shooting people in glorious slo-mo, seeking out gold and doing many other things you’d expect to do in such a game as well as things that maybe you wouldn’t!

As with many other action games in this age, GUN features a slow motion function. This allows you to slow down proceedings to a crawl allowing you to kill masses of goons with ease and within a matter of seconds no less. Making it easier still, is the fact that you can quickly move between targets during this state, not having to worry about direction and elevation. This perhaps can make shootouts a little too brainless as the baddies themselves aren’t exactly the brightest of sparks, nonetheless there’s still much fun to be had here, especially when the heads and limbs begin to detach from bodies.

Even if you do happen to deplete your slo-mo reserves, the game features a generous aiming system, which means even if you are to aim at a nearby bad guy you’re still likely to score a hit.

But this slow-motion business can only ever be utilised whilst you’re brandishing your pistol, meaning other weapons will only ever be whipped out in certain situations, therefore your pistol will become your weapon of choice for nearly the entire duration of the game.

Largely ignoring the many side-missions and just concentrating your efforts on the main story missions reveals the rather paltry length of GUN’S main quest, so if you so wish for the game to last substantially longer you must pay attention to all the little diversions from the main game and besides, increasing your stats is at times a must if you are to defeat some of the um…”badder” bad guys.

GUN is perhaps the best Wild West game ever; it’s certainly the best of the generation anyway! If not for its lack of challenge and short length, we could have been looking at a much greater game than the end result portrays.

8/10