Gun
Can Neversoft actually do something besides skating games anymore? Find out inside.
Published: November 14, 2005
That said, there are plenty of reasons why it doesn’t accomplish the goal. There are instances of clipping, of brain-dead AI that stands there and lets you pick them off from a distance, of side missions that are more or less throwaway. Hell, entire parts of the game wall you off with absolutely unacceptable invisible walls (go ahead, try to ride out of Dodge City opposite the train tracks). These things detract from the gameplay, which is farily modest in accomplishments, but the story of the game is the experience, and that is markedly sound.
I’m resisting the urge to lay out every bit of the game and dissect it like I normally do. I don’t want to do that, and I’m sure plenty of other editors will. Since we’re already so late on this review (in classic TPS fashion), I want more to just convey that this is a wonderfully exciting thing to pour over, as short (and fittingly so) as it is. Only the boss fight, which was impossibly difficult compared to the rest of the game, and the ending sequence, which seemed horribly tacked on, were at fault here in halting what is otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I haven’t felt the need – not the desire – to get 100% in a game in a long time, and it’s an achievable goal in a weekend’s time.
Criticisms can certainly be leveled at the graphics, though. While the motion-captured cutscenes and the... uh “mouth-syncing” are solid (the characters don't really have lips to speak of), the rest of the animation as a whole is lousy. Having people you talk to on a regular basis spastically gesticulate like some kind of crackhead Italian discussing a proper pasta dish removes the general feel of a character in place. The invisible walls are a huge and rampant vortex of removal from the general atmosphere, and the textures are generally low-res and bland across the board.
That said, we are dealing with the West here, but condensing the expanse from Montana to Kansas to New Mexico in the space of something rideable in about 5 minutes might make for more to do, but it’s less to see, and this feels like less of an expansive majority chunk of the US continent than something that may have been better delivered as a hypothetical bit of “Anywheres, USA.”
There are instances of frequent draw- or outright pop-in, and the complexity of what you’ll see isn’t very remarkable (it’s probably not a good idea to let a mountain bluff trail end in two 45 degree angles abruptly), but it’s still rather accomplished as an overall style. Some smaller details like the movement speed of the foxes that dot the landscape not matching up with their animations means they literally moonwalk forward on some kind of invisible layer of ice directly under their paws.
The audio, though, is gorgeous across the board, from the vocal performances from Tom Jane and Lance Henriksen to the firearm recording with a healthy amount of throat and bombast to the familiar clomp of hooves across dirt and wood (the latter of which is particularly impressive – and is different across wooded train tracks and wooden bridges).
The score, though, is what really helps sell the game. While it would have been certainly fitting (and welcome) to have a licensed score from someone like Ennio Morricone (a la Red Dead Revolver), but the choice to have Christopher Lennitz wasn’t a poor one. The music in the game, while reused a little too much, is still stellar. The main theme of the game has an instant hook, and it’s majestic in scale, perfectly capturing the essence of the open, grandiose feeling of riding around the open plains.
This isn’t a game without faults, but unlike some of Neversoft’s other games, it’s also fairly well designed in terms of length (never outstays its welcome), difficulty (only the final boss, as should be, is frustratingly tough), and welcomes proper checkpoints, plenty of characters and has no qualms with killing off major players in the storyline. This is a fantastic Western, and if you even remotely like the genre, you need to own this game.