I'd say we all put our Guns back in the saddle-- it's no use here

Set in the untamed West of the late 1800s, GUN is a free-roaming action-adventure game that takes you to a world without laws- where greed, lust and murder are rampant. As Colton White, a vengeful gunslinger, you must straddle the line between good and evil in a showdown against corrupt lawmen, a murderous preacher, renegade army psychopaths, merciless outlaws and relentless warring tribes. You'll travel through an action-packed landscape of high mountains wilderness, deserts and bustling territorial towns in an epic story of betrayal, greed and revenge.

It sounds like a perfect and exciting story. Truth is, the story is actually an exciting one. The game starts off you and your father hunting down animals to eat. Soon, you are on a boat fighting off hoards of enemies because your father isn't exactly an innocent man. He has hidden something in the boat's safe. You fight and before the boat blows up and your father dies by a horrible death, your so-called father tells you that you are not his son. WOW! Imagine that! Your world has been just flipped upside down. Now you are running out of time to destroy the men who have killed your so-called father and who wants you dead! As you may or not know, this is a third-person action-adventure game. The setting is in the West where saloons are popular, wh*res are screwed multiple times a day and alcohol being drunk heavily. This is similar to Red Dead Revolver because it has that setting and it actually has the same stuff. You have weapons to defeat the ol' West folk: Pistols, Rifles, Shotguns, Knife, Dynamite, Bow and Arrows and Sharpshooters. It has a decent variety in weapons but you don't really pay attention to them because of the bland display of items on the screen showing you how much bullets you have and what weapon you have. I swear, pistols and rifles acted the same way. Also shown on display is a flask which is your health. Yeah, you drink alcohol to help you get your health back in shape. A meter that tells you how much health you got a compass and a radar(map). Something cool to do with the weapons(a pistol does this effect) is a quick-draw meter. When you flick a button, you go into first person and the game slows down the time so you can focus on getting a head shot. It's pretty cool and you will use this quite often. If killing isn't your thing, you can grab your enemies and use them as a shield but come on! You have to kill in this game to survive. Grabbing opponents is done by stunning your opponent and then you can use him as a shield or you can subdue him like a hostage(this is important in one of the side missions). When the heat is too hot, you can roll your way to a clearing to get you some cover. You can hide beside buildings, rocks and whatever you can find.

Something really awesome and something you would do a lot in this game is riding horses. I think this is the most fun experience in this game. Forget automobiles, go horse-back! While on horseback, you can do several things: You can shoot enemies, make your horse jump, gallop, spur and finally make the horse kick up its front legs which this can be used as an attack below. While galloping and spurring your horse, you MUST be careful because there is a meter that tells you when your horse gets tired. If the horse gets too tired, it will die. However, the horse only gets tired when you keep pressing the galloping/spurring button. Also, the horse can die and there is a meter for this too. If you horse gets shot too many times, it will fall down and you will too. Using a horse is vital in some side-missions which there are 8 different types: Pony Express(using your horse, deliver items in the allotted time), Ranching(using your horse, help farmers corral up their livestock), Bounty Hunting(catch local outlaws that are wanted Dead or Alive), Mining(mine for gold), Poker(play in saloons and out-bluff your competition in a Texas Hold Em' tournament), Keep The Peace(sheriff is leaving town so he wants you to help local deputies to stop trouble in the town), Hunting(hunt animals and maybe you will get dinner tonight) and finally Rescue where an outlaw has taken innocent people hostage-save them before anyone gets hurt! The side-missions are excellent and they are really fun and so is the main story.

So why is the game getting a low score? Well, all the glory this game has or had falls down suddenly and it gets sacked like a bag of potatoes. The main story is only 2-3 hours long(that is not average people, it's not even below average). This game is even shorted than King Kong videogame! The side missions are possibly the same length. I really think the makers wanted to get this game out on shelves instead of focusing on making the game longer. GUN mostly feels like a tease; it could easily be the shortest game ever and it really feels like a mini-game. So where is the rest people? It's such a bummer when you bought this game the day before and you have beat it today. That is my situation and it really got me p*ssed off! If you really want this game, then please for God's sake, don't buy it because the money you pay to buy the game, it's just not worth it. The game is really fun don't get me wrong. Every minute I spent with this game, I couldn't think of one level that wasn't fun. The horseback riding are so much fun and the shoot outs are original. However, when you find out that you are near the last level and you just bought the damn thing, you will feel upset. Once again, that is my situation!

Controlling GUN is a mixed bag. It is laid out really well, quite possibly I couldn't ask for a better lay-out for this game. However, performing them is a different story because it is simple but yet it is very hard to know what each button does. You'll quickly forget how to reload(click left thumbstick), switch weapons(black button) and to zoom(click right thumbstick). However, you will also be pushing the wrong button when the heat is high and people are firing at you and you are quickly running out of health. It's tricky at these moments but when just breezing through, you literally breeze through! But everything else is pretty good. Firing a gun is simple: right trigger and to throw: left trigger. To jump is the A button and the quickdraw is the Y button. Spur/gallop/crouch is the B button while the directional buttons are to holster weapon, use flask and lean. It's not the easiest game to control but it's definitely not the most frustrating nor complicated game to control.

Visually, GUN is beautiful. The character models look believable and they are actually quite colorful. Their clothing is on the spot; think cloths on butts, cowboy boots/hats and Indian make-up on the body. Although, the 360 has better graphics but this is the next best thing considering the PS2 has its version of GUN. The surroundings are really good as well. The saloons are brown and dirty as you would expect. The insides are quite good with colorful textures. The day and nights are great; day has a bright tan/yellow/orange sun lighting up this world and the night to bring a black and gazing bluish moon. The horses in the game each have a different variation. One may be black with white spots or one might be all brown. It really doesn't matter since they each move smooth and real and they are quite good as in visual standpoint. When you are riding on a horse, the dust of the ground kicks up. It looks great! Even the small things in the game have been souped up to bring the realest of the real. Although, there is a couple of rough spots in graphics. One, each town looks the same. Second, up close, the mountains or rocks look bland. Other than that, excellent graphics and it's one of the best looking games on the system today. The sound however, is pitch perfect. The horses grunt and yelp just like in real life and riding them sounds awesome, animals bark or squeal, Indians do their native calling, gun shots sound real, explosions going off and so much in this game sounds pitch perfect. The two most noticeable sounds in the game is the horses running AND the voice-overs are emotionally real. The actors did an excellent job and their voice makes the game sound so real. The mouthing of the character models are perfect; they react so real, you couldn't tell if they were lip-reading.

Pros/Cons:
+ Story is really good
+ Game-play is exciting and fun/horseback riding
+ Graphics and sound are top-notch
- Story mode is way too short: 2-3 hours max
- Side missions are here but once you finish the story, no sense of going back
- Because of this, the game feels like a mini-game
- Controls are tricky when tension is high

GUN Information:
Genre: Action-adventure
Rated: M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language and Use of Alcohol
# of players: 1 player
Difficulty: Easy
Lasting Appeal: 2-3 hours to complete main story but you still have side missions to complete