Gun Showdown
Curious about how Rebellion's treatment of the Old West is shaping up? So were we, so we decided to play it and report back with the details.
Published: September 25, 2006
For all the crap that Neversoft has been getting over the years for pumping out a new Tony Hawk nigh-annually, they've certainly managed to become synonymous with skateboarding games. Which is why it was a surprise when their first non-Hawk game turned out to be a story-driven free-roaming tale of guns and treachery in the Old West.
The aptly-named Gun wasn't a romantic take on the lawless region of the United States either; it was violent, serious, and filled with revenge. In short it was just about everything that the tongue-in-cheek Tony Hawk games weren't, and for some, it was a welcome change. Still, it wasn't a perfect first try. Complaints of the game's difficulty and length cropped up almost immediately, and though Neversoft was quick to point out that there were harder difficulty settings, most never really played through the game again.
We happily conceded that the game was probably just right for the amount of stuff in the world, neither overstaying its welcome nor artificially inflating the narrative with pointless missions, but that doesn't mean that things couldn't be touched up here and there. This is precisely the approach that UK-based developer Rebellion took when handling the port to Sony's little portable. Thanks to a mandate that almost a third of the content be new for PS2-to-PSP ports, the developers have indeed thickened things up a little, but as we discovered with our hands-on play of the game last week, it's still a familiar take on the Old West.
Gun: Showdown doesn't attempt to refocus things or chop out any of the original source material. It's still a free-roaming Western, still offers all the side missions and mini-games, and still follows the same story of Colton White seeking revenge on the men that killed his family -- all while he discovers who is family actually is. Rebellion simply took some of the natural advantages that the PSP affords and worked with them. The result is a game that's slightly longer, offers actual multiplayer, and looks... well, we'll get to that in a second.
Since it is more or less identical to the console version (with just a few minor visual upgrades from the Xbox360 version and the art assets from the PS2 one), we'll just touch on the new stuff. For starters, five new missions have been included, though they actually piggyback off the voice acting sessions and basic setups that were going to be in the original Gun, but were cut. Where applicable, Activision brought in the original voice actors to lay down a few lines of dialogue, but for the most part, the repurposing fits into the game without feeling shoehorned or ham-fisted into the original narrative.
We had a chance to try out one of the new missions, dubbed Bank Job where it was our job to loot a... well, we're sure you can figure out the rest. We saddled up from the hot springs camp on the game's new horse, who actually has a name now to help players identify with their steed, but did it via the new whistle command that brings the horse to you. As we rode the through the canyon, we were impressed by the fact that this was indeed the same world we'd come to know many months ago, streaming and all. After a bit of twisting through the canyons, we followed Soapy, safe cracker extraordinaire to Empire City.
The aptly-named Gun wasn't a romantic take on the lawless region of the United States either; it was violent, serious, and filled with revenge. In short it was just about everything that the tongue-in-cheek Tony Hawk games weren't, and for some, it was a welcome change. Still, it wasn't a perfect first try. Complaints of the game's difficulty and length cropped up almost immediately, and though Neversoft was quick to point out that there were harder difficulty settings, most never really played through the game again.
We happily conceded that the game was probably just right for the amount of stuff in the world, neither overstaying its welcome nor artificially inflating the narrative with pointless missions, but that doesn't mean that things couldn't be touched up here and there. This is precisely the approach that UK-based developer Rebellion took when handling the port to Sony's little portable. Thanks to a mandate that almost a third of the content be new for PS2-to-PSP ports, the developers have indeed thickened things up a little, but as we discovered with our hands-on play of the game last week, it's still a familiar take on the Old West.
Gun: Showdown doesn't attempt to refocus things or chop out any of the original source material. It's still a free-roaming Western, still offers all the side missions and mini-games, and still follows the same story of Colton White seeking revenge on the men that killed his family -- all while he discovers who is family actually is. Rebellion simply took some of the natural advantages that the PSP affords and worked with them. The result is a game that's slightly longer, offers actual multiplayer, and looks... well, we'll get to that in a second.
Since it is more or less identical to the console version (with just a few minor visual upgrades from the Xbox360 version and the art assets from the PS2 one), we'll just touch on the new stuff. For starters, five new missions have been included, though they actually piggyback off the voice acting sessions and basic setups that were going to be in the original Gun, but were cut. Where applicable, Activision brought in the original voice actors to lay down a few lines of dialogue, but for the most part, the repurposing fits into the game without feeling shoehorned or ham-fisted into the original narrative.
We had a chance to try out one of the new missions, dubbed Bank Job where it was our job to loot a... well, we're sure you can figure out the rest. We saddled up from the hot springs camp on the game's new horse, who actually has a name now to help players identify with their steed, but did it via the new whistle command that brings the horse to you. As we rode the through the canyon, we were impressed by the fact that this was indeed the same world we'd come to know many months ago, streaming and all. After a bit of twisting through the canyons, we followed Soapy, safe cracker extraordinaire to Empire City.
