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GUN blazes its way into the sparsely populated "Wild West" themed game space with a grand and touching story, but ultimately falls short of delivering a truly magnificent experience.
First of all, GUN offers a great framework for a game. Not only is the Western-themed setting unique in the market, but the implementation is well done. Firing weapons is both accessible and rewarding. Riding horses really feels right and turns out to be a lot of fun. The side missions, like hunting down outlaws or delivering packages, are plentiful and somewhat varied. I personally got a kick out of playing rounds of Texas Hold 'em. The framework and mechanics also feed into a truly excellent and compelling story.
The setting for GUN is the latter half of the 1800's around Dodge City and the Rockies. You play as a calm, ultimately vengeful six-gun-slinging man named Cole. You start off hunting some animals in the woods, but quickly find yourself on a river ferry under siege by a gang of ruthless militia. The outcome of this sets you off on a journey of blood-thirsty revenge that will carry you all around the wild west, at least as far as the game map will allow.
From the outset, the story delivers astounding quality. The voice acting, for the most part, is absolutely top notch. The story itself is both personal and touching, as well as grandiose in scale and scope. The story is fantastic. I have stated this numerous times and you will doubtless hear it again, but this cannot be overstated.
However, GUN is not perfect, despite it's wonderful story.
The first problem is that the world of the game is not very large or very diverse. The whole game takes place between two towns and a remote outpost, with small camps and tunnels in between. The vast majority of the rest of the map is almost completely unpopulated. So even if you get out on your horse and find the world to seem physically large, it really doesn't stay large because you quickly find that there's nothing going on between the major points of interest.
Second, the game is very short. If you follow the story straight through, only stopping for a few side missions, you will be done in a few short hours. Those are not wasted hours, because following the story is a very rewarding and enjoyable experience, but they will be very few hours. If, on the other hand, you stop along the way to do most, or even all, of the side missions, you will still be finished with everything the game can offer in less than a weekend. Although, now that I think about it, you might be able to play through this game with spectators watching and they could have popcorn and enjoy this like a movie.
The size and duration of the game are not the only problems, though. Throughout the game, you will get an increasing feeling that it just wasn't finished. The sparsely populated areas are one indicator of this. Another indication is the fact that there isn't any continuity in the things that take place. For instance, when you take on a side mission, suddenly your road is lined with bad guys shooting at you, where there had been litterally nothing before. When you succeed in protecting a wagon filled with people who are being attacked by bandits, you see the "mission complete" screen and then everything vanishes. Train tracks run through much of the map, but only in a few scripted sequences do you ever see an actual train. These kinds of things break up the game into clearly delineated segments, rather than offering a fluid, contiguous experience.
After playing this game I had two very distinct feelings. First, I was very impressed and satisfied with the story. Second, my mind started racing, thinking about the virtually limitless possibilities for this game. They could release episodic content to add stories and expand the map. They could take the existing game and simply flesh out the locations and characters. They could add online play and different playable races for some multiplayer action.
It is clear that the framework for a great game/series is here. The team did a fantastic job with the story and characters. GUN just needs a little more, perhaps just some updating and new content, and this title could really soar as a series.
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