My GUN impressions...

[myawela]

I've been playing GUN for the last couple days and I must say, it's a very fun game and if you haven't already checked it out, you definitely should.

First off, it's been a long time since I've played a western type of game. So long, in fact, that I can't even remember the name of the last one that I played so this was a nice change of pace.

GUN is true to all things western. There's quick draw shootouts, playing Texas Hold 'em Poker, Indians, working as a deputy, going hunting, herding cattle, mining gold, riding for the pony express, lots of fun stuff to do besides the main storyline which is pretty good so far too (I'm only about 50% into the game so it's hard to say how the main storyline will turn out, but it looks like it'll be good so far).

The graphics in GUN are nothing too outstanding, that isn't to say they're not good though. Everything looks like it should in a western and it does a good job of giving you that atmosphere, which is what really matters. Riding around on your horse on the plains or walking through a town give you exactly the kind of feel they should in this type of game. There's also wildlife and enough other people around to where things don't feel empty most of the time. When things do seem a bit empty, you're usually just cruising through on a horse anyway so it's not a big deal.

The sound for the most part is good too. Voice acting is believable enough and some of the music that plays while you're riding around or doing parts of the missions fits perfectly. I like hearing the bandits yelling insults at me as I excape their attacks in the plains on my "fixed up horse."

That brings me to the next part, raising stats for yourself, your guns/other weapons and your horse are very important in the game. You have stats for your gun skill, quick draw, melee, horse, pretty much everything really, which improve as you do missions etc. There's also a lot of upgrades you can buy from various merchants around the towns and outside of the towns at times. Upgrading your horse is important if you want to have an easier time completing the pony express side missions where you're usually timed on getting something from one place to another. While improving your quick draw may help while doing deputy side quests that involve cleaning up the town of gangs and outlaws.

With all these upgrades around, it's important to make money. The side quests never really feel like a chore just to get a little cash (because most of the time that's all you're going to get, a LITTLE cash). You get money for pony express missions, deputy missions etc. but you can also get money just by riding around the game world and mining gold. You see it all over the place at first but it doesn't give you any more money than a typical side quest for each piece mined, and after a while it becomes pretty hard to find. So far, at 50% into the game, I have almost all of the upgrades I can get except for a few and I've been doing all the side quests as they become available (more usually become available after you do main quest missions, so it balances out nicely).

On normal difficulty, the game isn't too hard but there will probably be a couple times where you'll have to start a mission over. Missions are usually pretty short so starting them over isn't usually a big deal. Some missions may have multiple objectives and if you mess one of those up, you usually start back at the objective you failed so that's nice too. A lot of the time the missions involve something being timed or not letting other NPCs take too much damage so you can see where there may be times when things get a bit difficult, especially on higher difficulty levels.

I don't think I could really recommend GUN as a purchase, since I don't see a lot of replay value to the game. GUN is, however, a great rental if you want to have a different kind of game experience that we xbox fanatics haven't been able to have for a while.

[cmptrnrd16]

I am glad to see this game is good. I heard it was suppose to be good, but after seeing a TV spot for it I wanted to hurl on myself. I'll have to give it a rent for the Xbox sometime. Does the 360 version have any extra stuff?

[myawela]

I haven't seen the commercial, but I could understand how a quick glimpse of the game could leave that impression.

I'm about 72% complete with the game now. From the 50% mark until where I am now there was some great stuff. Some really good action sequences happened that were quite fun to play through. I got that 22% relatively quickly because it was at a point where a lot of things happen along the main quest so now I'm going to go back to doing all the side quests that I opened up by doing those main quests.

Anyway, I don't think there's any difference in the game from 360 to xbox from what I've heard. I'm sure it's prettier on 360 but other than that they should be about the same I'd imagine.



EDIT: How funny, I just saw a GUN commercial after writing this. I didn't think the commercial looked too bad, it mainly focused on cut scene type stuff from the main quest though and doesn't accurately represent the game as a whole.