Gun

More about Gun

Gun is a third-person open-world action-adventure set in the American frontier of 1880, built by Neversoft and published by Activision for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Windows, with the game later also appearing on Xbox 360 as one of that console's launch titles. An expanded version titled Gun: Showdown followed on PSP. Players take control of Colton White, a gunslinger raised among the Apache after his foster father was murdered years earlier. When the man who raised him is killed again, this time by the men of a ruthless former Union officer named Major Thomas Magruder, Colton is drawn into a hunt for the truth about his real father and, eventually, for Quivira, a legendary lost city of gold that Magruder is willing to burn the frontier down to find. The story moves through several real and fictional stops across the West, including Montana, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas and the cattle town of Dodge City in New Mexico, and leans on a voice cast built around Thomas Jane as Colton alongside Ron Perlman, Lance Henriksen, Kris Kristofferson, Brad Dourif, Tom Skerritt and Eric Schweig in supporting roles. Structurally, Gun is a free-roam game: the map is open from early on, with main story missions marking the plot's progress and a wide spread of optional side missions and activities filling in the space between them. Side content raises Colton's stats and nets cash, and ranges from poker tournaments in saloons to buffalo and wild-horse hunting, cattle herding, law-enforcement jobs, timed races, and panning or digging for gold at mineral veins scattered across the map. A running Town Patience system tracks how civilians react to Colton's behaviour in a given settlement, and provoking it too far, including by killing bystanders, turns the town against him in a full shootout. Combat covers several weapon classes that the player can mix and switch between: revolvers, rifles, shotguns, and a bow capable of firing standard, flaming or explosive arrows, alongside throwable explosives like delayed-fuse dynamite and whiskey bottles that ignite on impact, plus shootable TNT barrels planted around certain encounters. Melee weapons such as a Bowie knife, tomahawk, cavalry saber and a scalping knife round out close-range options, and Colton can grab enemies as human shields or, on bounty missions, choose to knock targets out rather than kill them for a different outcome. A signature mechanic called Quickdraw fills a meter during combat that, once charged, triggers a slow-motion first-person burst with unlimited ammo, letting the player snap off several precise shots at once, useful both for clearing out groups and for duels. Horseback riding is a full combat space in its own right rather than just a way to cross the map: Colton can shoot and swing melee weapons while mounted, chase down or be chased by other riders, trample enemies underfoot, and lose his horse, or kill an opponent's, mid-fight. The PSP version, Gun: Showdown, expanded the side-mission roster, added throwing knives and land mines to the arsenal, and introduced a multiplayer mode not present in the original console and PC releases.