Gun

[Bob the Insane]

A Western based game in the GTA mold... Hurrah!!

Pretty good script, slightly cheezy story and excellent voice acting from real actors... Not really all that much freedom or that much to do outside the main campaign but basically great fun. Very (and I do mean very) violent story though...

I picked up the PC version and I am regretting it a little, I think this game is really optimised for consoles. I am not sure if future 360 owners should get too excited either... On the PC this does not really look all that good, as if it has been optimised for the consoles and simply ported to the PC without much additional work. I have seen a 360 running CoD2 and it looked pretty much identical to what I see on my PC and as GUN is a little odd looking on the PC so I cannot imagine it will be one of the prettier games on the 360 either... The addition graphical configuration options are a bit clunky and area loading can cause a drop in framerate at the most inopportune times (though I am wondering if the game is like FEAR and needs to be run at a lower res with FSAA enabled rather than simply bumping up the res to look good)...

Overall it is a good game, loads of fun if a little limited... I am playing it on Hard and it is HARD (towards the end)! The enemy are very accurate and you cannot take many hits at all. Normally I find control with mouse and keyboard much quicker and more accurate than a game pad, but in yhis case the mouse and keyboard did not feel as responsive somehow.

Basically while this is a very fun game with excellent voice acting and a not entirely cheezy plot I can't really recommend it on the PC. If you have an XBOX or are going to get a 360, then get it on that instead and you will have a very good game...

If the above sounds like complaining it is just that I am a little disapointed with the PC version (it simply does not exhibit GTA's polish on the PC)...

[Forward Observer]

Thanks for the review. I am a big western fan and was looking forward to this game, but I am disappointed that it doesn't play well on the PC.

I have a PS2, but I generally dislike shooters on a console because the standard console game pads are just totally inferior to a mouse and keyboard for such games. That is why most of the big state of the art shooters are developed for the PC first.

I have two western shooters--one called Red Dead Revolver, which was only developed for the console, and one called Dead Man's hand that came out on the console, but was also ported to the PC. I have the PC version of the latter game. Although Red Dead (developed by RockStar) is probably is a better game and has overall higher production values, Dead Man just feels more comfortable to play because of the preciseness of a mouse

I think most console ports of shooters have to have some auto-aim built in because of the lack of preciseness of those stupid thumb controlled toggle sticks. In fact the game controllers for consoles are simply my biggest dislike of medium.

At some point someone developed a mouse and keyboard for the console, but it's a shame that it didn't catch on and that very few games were designed to utilize it.

If consoles are going to have the sophistication that all the developers are bragging about for future generations, eventually they are going to have to expand the control system beyond a limiting factor of the simplistic 14 button game pad.

Anyway thanks again.

[Geoffrey S]

I want to find Outlaws again; a most excellent western based game. My old copy is broken.

[Lemur]

Played it on PC. Kind of fun, and if GTA had never happened it would seem like a revelation. Very short game, as well. I don't think I'll ever play it again, so if anyone wants a used copy cheap, I'd be more than happy to pass it on.