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. Along the way, you’ll wage war on horseback, collect bounties and protect prostitutes. Travel through an action packed landscape of high mountain wilderness, deserts and bustling territorial town in an epic story of betrayal, greed and revenge. (as described by the official web site).

Developer: Neversoft
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Third Person Shooter

Minimum System Requirements
CPU Pentium III or Athlon equivalent 1.8+ GHz (Pentium) or 1800+ (Athlon)
256 MB RAM
3D hardware accelerator card required - 100% DirectX(R) 9.0c-compliant 32 MB Hardware T&L capable video card and the latest drivers (NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti+ / ATI Radeon 8500+)

Recommended System Requirements
CPU Pentium 4 or Athlon XP 2.4+ GHz (Pentium) or 2400+ (Athlon)
512 MB RAM
3D hardware accelerator card required - 100% DirectX(R) 9.0c-compliant 64 MB Hardware T&L - capable video card and the latest drivers (NVIDIA GeForce FX+ / ATI Radeon 9600+)

Test System
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT PCI-E 128

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Let me start by saying I wish game makers would publish more western material. What a great time period—full of weapons that differ in size, strength and range. Gun fights erupting at any given time for any given reason: a girl, a card game or even a look could stir it up…crazy times but exciting, and in a game could be lots of fun. Few manufactures have even given it a go, over the last 10 years I can only recall a couple of attempts at the era on PC: “Wanted: A Wild Western” “Western Outlaw: Wanted Dead or Alive” and “Outlaw”—all were unsuccessful, and only Outlaw was rated a good game.

Into the ring comes Neversoft with “GUN”.

The controls are on par with most first person shooters, it utilizes the typical keyboard/mouse config and I felt right at home. The game took a bit of time to get used to but thanks to the tutorial, which is integrated nicely into the story, I felt comfortable when things heated up. GUN is mainly played in third person perspective except when in “bullet time” or, as they call it in GUN, “quick time,” where you take on a familiar first person perspective. The 'quick time' effect is similar to Max Payne, where you are able to take out the trash in slow motion Matrix-like action minus the nifty dives and rolls that Max did. Also like Max Payne, you are limited to the length of time you can be in this dream like state, but it seemed to be more available than in that game; it regenerated quicker in addition to lasting longer.

I enjoyed the story, it flowed well and kept me interested. The story didn't compare to Max Payne or Psychonauts, where you couldn't stop playing the game because you had to know what was next, it was fun—just not consuming. According to the game, I only truly played 82 percent. The main story is short—I completed it in roughly 5 hours, and it only consists of half the actual game because of the available side missions. The side missions support a kind of monetary system. They consist of poker tournaments, hunting missions, bounties on the un-savory, ranching (herding cows and horses), pony express (deliver mail via horse), rescue missions and lawman duties (protecting objects or important people) all of which can be found listed on the sides of buildings or visiting certain people in town. The side missions can be done in-between the main missions that drive the story but are not necessary to complete the story. Because of the interest in the story and the success I was having completing it I really didn't spend a ton of time on the side missions.

The cash earned from side missions could be used to purchase upgrades for weapons or tools to accomplish other task such as mining or scalping. Employing a monetary system is an interesting idea but almost unnecessary. It doesn’t really lend anything to the story which will be your focus and the upgrades that can be bought are almost unnoticeable in game play.

The gun fighting was definitely geared for the console. Your weapon will auto aim with a key stroke when in bullet time. When changing to the enemy you want to fire upon, the cross hairs move to the body and then the head where you can make you lethal one shot kills in most cases. I have to admit, when I'm playing a console game I like the auto aim/aim bot (because I suck with a stick)... but when playing on a PC I look for something a little more pure and challenging and this certainly took away from that aspect. Don't get me wrong, the multiple head shots I had were very rewarding, especially when the enemy would fall slowly from his horse with no head.