GUN (PS2) > Reviews > Grand Theft Equine

Author's product rating:   

Playability & Enjoyment	Excellent - very playable game
Addictiveness	Compulsive
Graphics	Good
Difficulty & Complexity	Average - suitable for most
Value for money	Good value

Advantages:	Great storyline, many and varied side - missions
Disadvantages:	Quite short, no replay value

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Grand Theft Auto series has cornered the video games market in terms of car and gun crime, allowing players to roam freely around a large map with many and varied side missions to complete, with a main storyline always in the background. So that's that then, no more games of that type stand a chance do they? Enter 'Gun', a similar concept to Grand Theft Auto, but set in the Wild West. So it's time to put away the gang colours, flashy rides, 9mm semi-automatic pistols and your Tech-9 sub-machine pistols and pull on your best buck-skin draws, polish your shootin' irons and saddle up pardner - yeehaa!

WHAT IS IT?

If my intro didn't make it clear, Gun is a third-person (you see your character as though he were being followed by a T.V. camera) action game for PS2, Xbox, X360 and PC, in which the player takes the part of Colton White, a young cowboy who is about to find himself at the centre of some earth-shaking events, at least as far as the lives of the citizens of his particular corner of the wild west are concerned. The game carries an 18 certificate, which to my mind is slightly harsh. I'd have said a 15 certificate would have been more appropriate since there is no sexual content, little foul language and, despite the oodles and oodles of violence, surprisingly little blood and gore (although the option to scalp people is pretty icky!).

STORYLINE & GAMEPLAY

At the start of the game we're introduced to Colton White and his 'Pa', Ned, doing a spot of hunting which handily allows you to get used to the basic controls whilst under no threat. After this gentle introduction, it's straight into the storyline, with the opening engagement leaving our hero bereft of his Pa and left to deal with the revelation that Ned wasn't his real father after all! With no other clues to what the heck is going on, other than a token for Alhambra, a Saloon cum brothel in the town of Dodge, and a name, 'Jenny', young Colton sets off on his adventure.

I'll not go into the story any more than that as I don't see any reason to spoil it! The bulk of the game is made up of all the things you'd expect of a cowboy-filled jaunt through the wild west; shoot-outs with various nefarious types, both on foot and on horseback, train hijacks, jail breaks, purdy ladies and no good, two-bit, dirty-dealing, double-crossing sons o'... ahem, that is, bad men!

Along the way you'll pick up a variety of weapons, starting with a rifle, a six-shooter and a bowie knife and amassing a selection of shotguns, pistols, rifles and bows, plus the obligatory sticks of dynamite.

Aside of the main game there are also a range of side-missions, prompting the comparison to the GTA games. These side-missions are Texas Hold 'Em poker, Deputy missions, Pony Express missions, wanted posters, ranch-hand missions, hunting and Federal Marshal missions. These side-missions will greatly help you in the later levels of the storyline, since they provide you with much needed cash to upgrade your weapons, plus they increase your 'gun hand', 'quick draw', 'melee' and 'horse' skills.

The poker missions consist of 4 mini-tournaments of (slightly) increasing difficulty. In each round you play against 4 people, each starting with 100 chips. The first two rounds are free to enter, whilst the latter two cost real money, but you can walk away with some cash even in the free-to-enter games. I don't mind admitting that I'm horribly bad at poker (hence my friends regularly ask me to play and I regularly laugh and decline), but even I managed to fleece this sorry crowd and I may even have polished up my poker playing skills a bit in the process (not that I'm about to try it on real people who can read my expression and such).

The Deputy missions involve breaking up fights, rescuing hostages, seeing off gangs and the like, all of which take place in and around the town of Dodge. The Federal Marshal missions are of broadly the same character, but take place over a much wider area, covering the town of Empire and the plains and canyons between there and Dodge. Success in each mission is rewarded with some cash, typically $10-30 and some bonuses to your quick draw, gun hand and melee skills.

The Pony Express missions are a test of speed, as you carry urgent messages or supplies from point A to point B and, in later levels, also involve evading bad guys en route and galloping across the whole map, picking up fresh horses along the way. Unsurprisingly, these missions give you a boost to your horse skill along with $10-20 hard currency.

Wanted posters can be found in various locations, though mostly in Dodge and Empire. Each poster offers a reward for the capture of killing of some criminal or other. Later missions usually involve killing or capturing somebody who will be accompanied by a gang (who must also be gunned down out of necessity). These missions enhance the same skills as the Deputy and Marshal missions and provide fees of $10-30, often with slightly more for the capture as opposed to killing of the criminal in question.

The ranch-hand missions involve, somewhat unsurprisingly, the herding of cattle and, later on, protecting them from rustlers or wolves. Your reward is around $10-20 in cash plus a bonus to your horse skill.

The hunting missions put your bow skills to the test, with the Indian hunter challenging you to hunt increasingly fearsome predators (from grey wolf, via mountain lion, which I think is actually a cougar, and all the way up to the grizzly bear) with just a bow and arrow and your wits. This takes a bit of getting used to, but within a few tries you'll get the hang of creeping up slowly for a close range head shot. Your reward for this needless and loathsome blood-sport is a bonus to your gun hand skill, which is frankly worth the bad taste it may leave in your mouth!

If all that weren't enough, there are also 44 chunks of gold just waiting to be mined if you can but find them around the map, though the first time you mine one of these huge lumps of gold, you'll likely be as put out as I was that it's only worth $10! Still, you can't really complain when it only takes about 3 second to mine it!

MY OPINION

As a big fan of the Grand Theft Auto series and a big fan of cowboy-type games, I was bound to like this really. The controls are simple enough and the graphics and sound are pretty solid, with some stunning scenery. The side missions provide plenty of variety to supplement a very engaging and well thought out storyline. There is also quite an impressive cast of voice actors, most notably Thomas Jane (The Punisher) as Colton White, Kris Kristofferson as the voice (and indeed face) of Ned, Lance Henriksen (Bishop from Aliens) as the gravel-voiced baddy MacGruder, Brad Dourif (Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings, plus countless roles that sci-fi fans will know him from) as Reverend Reed and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) as Mayor Hodoo Brown.

However, as much as I liked this game, there are two major niggles that have cost it a 5 star rating and almost relegated it to 3 stars. Firstly, the storyline itself is too short and I suspect that, if you ignored the side games (and assuming you were skilled enough to progress in the game without the various weapon and health upgrades the side-games provide) the game could quite probably be completed in one afternoon. To compound this, there is no motivation at all to replay the game, even though the war-horse and hugely powerful gun you get as a reward for finishing the storyline may induce you to carry on playing just a little while longer, even if just for the sake of blowing up any would-be bandits stupid enough to take on somebody with a gun capable of killing them and their horse in one shot! (holy cow, how long was that sentence!)

Whilst I'm slating the game, I should also mention that I thought the map was a bit on the small side. At first, once set loose in the wider world beyond Dodge, the map seems fairly expansive. However, once you've explored a bit and discovered that you can quite reasonably gallop from Empire to Dodge (on opposite sides of the map) in under two minutes, you'll probably start to feel, as I did, that the game developers should have pushed the boat out a bit and given us a bit more land to go at.

Such serious drawbacks as these notwithstanding, the game is still well worth playing and, assuming you want to complete all the side missions, as I did, it ought to provide you with entertainment for a week or two. Having finished the game, I find myself hoping for a sequel that combines the basic concepts of Gun with the sort of expansive game environment and length of storyline that will turn a quality game into a classic. Obvious extras would include lasso use, for roping steers and bad guys, rodeo competitions and perhaps a 2-player facility of some sort.

PRICE

The RRP is around £25, but you ought to be able to get a copy for much less than that. Amazon will currently sell you a new copy for a very reasonable £12.99, whilst copies are available from Amazon traders or Ebay for under a tenner and you can't say fairer than that!

Now don't just sit there a-gawkin', saddle 'er up; or is ye' too lily-livered?