[Mini-Review] GUN Showdown
It's High Noon for Rebellion's port of Neversoft's fun-but-flawed Western. Our take on their take on the Old West.
Published: October 17, 2006
[The Good]
We started these Mini-Reviews a while back as a means to condense down a bunch of information into a simple, quick read. Given that I can't seem to write a review that's under a thousand words, however, it's not really "mini" so much as "smaller". Now, finally, I can do something that's truly tiny, because in nearly every respect GUN Showdown is just GUN in portable form.
Even that sounds like a cop-out (and, well, I'm a lazy bastard, so I'm sure in a way it is), but there's no getting around the fact that developer Rebellion managed to cram the whole of the console experience into a completely different engine (their startlingly adept Asura Engine) and add in a little more as per Sony's requirement for ports.
So if you're curious about the main game, by all means, read the review of the PS2 version. I assure you that nearly everything that was good (and even the bad stuff) was retained here. Hell, you can even read our hands-on preview if you want the nuts and bolts of the new stuff. I'll just touch on them here for the sake of keeping this Mini-Review, well, mini.
The two biggest additions to the game (beyond the five new missions that were reintroduced into the storyline to help thicken up the middle of it a little more, all of which fit in rather seamlessly) are the Quick Play and Multi-Player Modes. Though we touched on them a bit in the preview, both deserve at least another passing verdict. The whole idea that portions of the game could be repurposed for something that's meant to be played in little 10-15 minute spurts sounds like it would come off as half-assed or at least feeling less than polished.
Amazingly, that's not really the case. All of the Quick Play games are actually fun, which is something we can't really say for the multiplayer. Oh, we like it enough, but something about playing the game in Ad-Hoc just felt... Well, wrong. This is the kind of experience that could have made a really solid online game considering how small the maps are and how good the bots can be. If the two modes, the Multiplayer felt the most tacked on, but both were solid enough entries that they're welcome additions to what was famously a rather short story experience.
[The Bad]
The transition to the PSP wasn't without some issues. The simple fact that there's no second analog stick in a game that requires that you move and shoot at the same time means some precision is going to be lost. Rebellion was smart enough to tone down some of the damage taken in the game and dumb down the AI enough that enemies will actually stop long enough for you to get off a shot, but it can make for some particularly tough sequences that require memorization of where enemies will appear over quick reaction times.
There's also the issue of the framerate. GUN on the PS2 wasn't the smoothest of games, but it did stream things out without any major hitches, which is something the PSP version can't quite do. This is a full streamed world, and I'm not knocking that, but the UMD format isn't really conducive to heavy streaming, and intermittent pauses and "Please Wait" screens do crop up from time to time, putting a damper on the whole idea that you have a massive free-roaming version of the old west. When you're out in the great wide open, the poor PSP often can't really keep up, and though I wish I could say it isn't a problem, when coupled with the control issues, later in the game it can be incredibly frustrating.
[The Verdict]
GUN Showdown accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do; it replicates the entire experience that was offered on the PlayStation 2, and does it on the PSP with more content, additions that are actually fun, and an admirable -- if compromised -- presentation for it all. The addition of Quick Play and Multiplayer games (that actually include botmatches!) were novel ones, and the new missions fit in well enough that they don't feel forced in any way.
It's doubtful the PSP will see another Western this good in its lifetime, and that's thanks both in part to the original work that Neversoft put into the original versions and the time spent by Rebellion cramming it all into the still-gimped PSP hardware. It's not perfect -- not by a long shot -- nor is it without frustrations, but these are inherent problems with the PSP itself for the most part, and one could argue that the game's length is perfectly suited for a handheld. Just be ready to take the good with the bad.
We started these Mini-Reviews a while back as a means to condense down a bunch of information into a simple, quick read. Given that I can't seem to write a review that's under a thousand words, however, it's not really "mini" so much as "smaller". Now, finally, I can do something that's truly tiny, because in nearly every respect GUN Showdown is just GUN in portable form.
Even that sounds like a cop-out (and, well, I'm a lazy bastard, so I'm sure in a way it is), but there's no getting around the fact that developer Rebellion managed to cram the whole of the console experience into a completely different engine (their startlingly adept Asura Engine) and add in a little more as per Sony's requirement for ports.
So if you're curious about the main game, by all means, read the review of the PS2 version. I assure you that nearly everything that was good (and even the bad stuff) was retained here. Hell, you can even read our hands-on preview if you want the nuts and bolts of the new stuff. I'll just touch on them here for the sake of keeping this Mini-Review, well, mini.
The two biggest additions to the game (beyond the five new missions that were reintroduced into the storyline to help thicken up the middle of it a little more, all of which fit in rather seamlessly) are the Quick Play and Multi-Player Modes. Though we touched on them a bit in the preview, both deserve at least another passing verdict. The whole idea that portions of the game could be repurposed for something that's meant to be played in little 10-15 minute spurts sounds like it would come off as half-assed or at least feeling less than polished.
Amazingly, that's not really the case. All of the Quick Play games are actually fun, which is something we can't really say for the multiplayer. Oh, we like it enough, but something about playing the game in Ad-Hoc just felt... Well, wrong. This is the kind of experience that could have made a really solid online game considering how small the maps are and how good the bots can be. If the two modes, the Multiplayer felt the most tacked on, but both were solid enough entries that they're welcome additions to what was famously a rather short story experience.
[The Bad]
The transition to the PSP wasn't without some issues. The simple fact that there's no second analog stick in a game that requires that you move and shoot at the same time means some precision is going to be lost. Rebellion was smart enough to tone down some of the damage taken in the game and dumb down the AI enough that enemies will actually stop long enough for you to get off a shot, but it can make for some particularly tough sequences that require memorization of where enemies will appear over quick reaction times.
There's also the issue of the framerate. GUN on the PS2 wasn't the smoothest of games, but it did stream things out without any major hitches, which is something the PSP version can't quite do. This is a full streamed world, and I'm not knocking that, but the UMD format isn't really conducive to heavy streaming, and intermittent pauses and "Please Wait" screens do crop up from time to time, putting a damper on the whole idea that you have a massive free-roaming version of the old west. When you're out in the great wide open, the poor PSP often can't really keep up, and though I wish I could say it isn't a problem, when coupled with the control issues, later in the game it can be incredibly frustrating.
[The Verdict]
GUN Showdown accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do; it replicates the entire experience that was offered on the PlayStation 2, and does it on the PSP with more content, additions that are actually fun, and an admirable -- if compromised -- presentation for it all. The addition of Quick Play and Multiplayer games (that actually include botmatches!) were novel ones, and the new missions fit in well enough that they don't feel forced in any way.
It's doubtful the PSP will see another Western this good in its lifetime, and that's thanks both in part to the original work that Neversoft put into the original versions and the time spent by Rebellion cramming it all into the still-gimped PSP hardware. It's not perfect -- not by a long shot -- nor is it without frustrations, but these are inherent problems with the PSP itself for the most part, and one could argue that the game's length is perfectly suited for a handheld. Just be ready to take the good with the bad.
