Gun
The Old West rocks, oh yes, yes it does.
Published: October 20, 2005
When we got invited to the unveiling of Gun here in San Francisco’s pristine Presidio, we didn’t really know what to expect. Yeah, there had been plenty of rumors and a “confirmed” fact from someone we now trust a whole lot more that Neversoft, home of naught but Tony Hawk for what seemed like upteen years, was hard at work on a first-person shooter. A FPS in the Old West.
This was, in a word, intriguing. Neversoft had never done a FPS before. They’d done shooters, sure, but they were of the decidedly third-person variety. When it was finally revealed that the game would be a free-roaming adventure out on the open plains, and ladled heavily over a tale of revenge, intrigue turned to apprehension – especially because we couldn’t play the damned thing.
But now, finally, we have spent hands-on time with Gun, and we have no problem saying that it will be one of the most visceral, engaging adventures to hit this year, and we’ve already had a couple of them. What was perhaps most impressive about the whole presentation was just how cinematic it was, from the introduction of characters to the final reveal of the title, it’s one of those things you forget a developer is capable of after seeing hundreds of thousands of kickflips for the better part of a decade.
But Neversoft is truly adept at delivering some cutscenes with powerful emotion and plenty of flair, and the performances squeezed out of [umd=7]The Punisher[/umd] himself, Thom Jane in particular are quite impressive indeed. He just has that low growl that fits the kind of character the Colton White, the game’s lead, requires.
Rather than wasting time rewording what we’ve already laid out, we’ll just point you to our First Look at Gun from the above mentioned unveiling. It’ll give you plenty of insight into the storyline and setup, and once you’re all done there, you can come back here for actual impressions of the game itself.
We started off with a little mountain man training that helped familiarize us with the controls. Colton can fire off a standard shot from the default 3rd person view, but he can also activate a slow-motion feature that auto-locks onto enemies with something called Quick Draw. Flicking the right analog stick quickly switches targets, and it’s actually possible to just flick and fire until everyone’s dead, but actually flicking and fine-tuning shots to hit heads will keep the meter filled and slo-mo going.
After a few more segments, we killed a couple elk long-range (and learned how to scope out targets in the process), the moved to some close-quarters knife fights with a pack of wolves trying to move in on our kill. After a close call with a mini-boss in the form of a grizzly, we were treated to the title and the first lengthy cinema where we had to repel a couple of invading savages (of the white variety rather than the assumed red) with a cannon and later rifle and pistols.
After a climatic final stand, Colton is told the bombshell, is shoved off the boat and heads to Dodge City to meet his destiny. It’s here that he meets Jenny, engages the local riff-raff and eventually moves with the buxom lass to another nearby town where the local lawman there may be able to help Colton get to the bottom of his lineage and what Ned White was doing with a lady of the night.
While most of the action in town was more of the same we did get to skip ahead a bit and goof around with the free-roaming elements. We mined for gold (it’s as simple as finding a lode and picking at it for a bit), collected a couple of bounties (dead or alive, but alive gets you a few dollars more), and shopped a bit at the general store to upgrade our weapons, horseshoes (so our steed might run a little faster) and flask.
What’s cool about the towns and indeed the game in general – aside from how open an free-form it all feels for a rather linear storyline – is how much stuff happens whether you get involved or not. The rampant lawlessness of the West is made abundantly clear here, as shootouts and fights break out at any time, usually right around where you are, and you have total freedom to get involved or leave the quarrels to those quarrelin’.
Most of what we dig about Gun can’t be told in a simple preview, and certainly not without spoiling the plot. Suffice it to say there are numerous shifts in allegiance, plenty of double-crosses and more people who aren’t what they seem than are, and if the rest of the game can hold up to the good hour or so experience we had, this is going to be the most compelling picture of the darker side of the West games have ever seen. We’ll bring you more when we get it.
This was, in a word, intriguing. Neversoft had never done a FPS before. They’d done shooters, sure, but they were of the decidedly third-person variety. When it was finally revealed that the game would be a free-roaming adventure out on the open plains, and ladled heavily over a tale of revenge, intrigue turned to apprehension – especially because we couldn’t play the damned thing.
But now, finally, we have spent hands-on time with Gun, and we have no problem saying that it will be one of the most visceral, engaging adventures to hit this year, and we’ve already had a couple of them. What was perhaps most impressive about the whole presentation was just how cinematic it was, from the introduction of characters to the final reveal of the title, it’s one of those things you forget a developer is capable of after seeing hundreds of thousands of kickflips for the better part of a decade.
But Neversoft is truly adept at delivering some cutscenes with powerful emotion and plenty of flair, and the performances squeezed out of [umd=7]The Punisher[/umd] himself, Thom Jane in particular are quite impressive indeed. He just has that low growl that fits the kind of character the Colton White, the game’s lead, requires.
Rather than wasting time rewording what we’ve already laid out, we’ll just point you to our First Look at Gun from the above mentioned unveiling. It’ll give you plenty of insight into the storyline and setup, and once you’re all done there, you can come back here for actual impressions of the game itself.
We started off with a little mountain man training that helped familiarize us with the controls. Colton can fire off a standard shot from the default 3rd person view, but he can also activate a slow-motion feature that auto-locks onto enemies with something called Quick Draw. Flicking the right analog stick quickly switches targets, and it’s actually possible to just flick and fire until everyone’s dead, but actually flicking and fine-tuning shots to hit heads will keep the meter filled and slo-mo going.
After a few more segments, we killed a couple elk long-range (and learned how to scope out targets in the process), the moved to some close-quarters knife fights with a pack of wolves trying to move in on our kill. After a close call with a mini-boss in the form of a grizzly, we were treated to the title and the first lengthy cinema where we had to repel a couple of invading savages (of the white variety rather than the assumed red) with a cannon and later rifle and pistols.
After a climatic final stand, Colton is told the bombshell, is shoved off the boat and heads to Dodge City to meet his destiny. It’s here that he meets Jenny, engages the local riff-raff and eventually moves with the buxom lass to another nearby town where the local lawman there may be able to help Colton get to the bottom of his lineage and what Ned White was doing with a lady of the night.
While most of the action in town was more of the same we did get to skip ahead a bit and goof around with the free-roaming elements. We mined for gold (it’s as simple as finding a lode and picking at it for a bit), collected a couple of bounties (dead or alive, but alive gets you a few dollars more), and shopped a bit at the general store to upgrade our weapons, horseshoes (so our steed might run a little faster) and flask.
What’s cool about the towns and indeed the game in general – aside from how open an free-form it all feels for a rather linear storyline – is how much stuff happens whether you get involved or not. The rampant lawlessness of the West is made abundantly clear here, as shootouts and fights break out at any time, usually right around where you are, and you have total freedom to get involved or leave the quarrels to those quarrelin’.
Most of what we dig about Gun can’t be told in a simple preview, and certainly not without spoiling the plot. Suffice it to say there are numerous shifts in allegiance, plenty of double-crosses and more people who aren’t what they seem than are, and if the rest of the game can hold up to the good hour or so experience we had, this is going to be the most compelling picture of the darker side of the West games have ever seen. We’ll bring you more when we get it.