The American Old West is a period seldom done right in the world of videogames. Since LucasArts’ Outlaws, in fact, nothing has quite captured both the flavor of the West and the fun we expect from our favorite pastime. Activision is hoping to change all that with a game called Gun, and it’s also looking to educate gamers about “the real West” in the process.
The “real West” included gunfights. It included outlaws. It included frontier forts, crooked lawmen and bloody battles with Native Americans. We already knew that. What we didn’t necessarily know, and what Gun will present in a major (and perhaps overly reliant) way, is the prevalence of prostitution and gambling. The influence of money, liquor and power. The rampancy of racism and corruption in the American frontier. These are the stories Gun will tell. And these are the stories gamers will experience through the eyes of a Civil War veteran.
Colton White, the main character in Gun, is a true survivor, raised by a rugged father who was killed in cold blood with a steamboat prostitute named Sadie. Having just returned from the Civil War, and completely desensitized to violence, Colton is looking for revenge. That’s not a good combination, and it’s certainly not good news for Magruder, the man he’s out to kill.
Players will traverse the Old West from Montana to New Mexico looking for Magruder. Along the way, they’ll meet a prostitute named Jenny, a woman as attractive to Colton for her looks as she is for her relationship with Sadie and possible knowledge of Magruder’s hideout. Whether players listen to Jenny and follow the advice of a prostitute, or whether they decide to head aimlessly out of Dodge City looking for a fight, two things are certain: they’ll be cheated and hunted at every turn, and the results will not be pretty.
Actually, whether players even take on certain aspects of the game is completely their decision. In classic Grand Theft Auto fashion, the missions and environments throughout Colton’s journey will be held together by a distinct plot and storyline, but the side quests and subplots are entirely optional. As we reveal in our interview with Project Lead Chad Findley (read it here), these side quests will include protecting a stagecoach full of whores, allying with a Blackfoot tribe to fend off the invading cavalry, and helping Chinese miners from becoming trapped in their own mine after it’s collapsed by the greedy former owners. These are just some of the true-to-life scenarios that Neversoft, best known for developing the Tony Hawk games, unearthed in its research, and they’re just a sampling of the quests on which gamers can choose to embark. They will also, if Activision’s hopes are realized, provide a more-complete look into what really happened in the Old West.
When gamers think “Old West,” they generally think of two things: horseback riding and gunfights in mining towns. Fortunately, Neversoft thinks of the same two things, so Gun includes plenty of both. With its third-person perspective, Gun provides a great view of the on-horse action. One scenario we saw showed Colton riding through a valley surrounded by renegades. These renegades were each on their own horses, attacking Colton relentlessly with shotguns and pistols. As Colton circled around to avoid bullets and get better angles on his targets, the horses kicked up dust, the renegades pulled their reins to make sudden turns, and the enemies Colton had shot fell to the ground and were trampled by their posse. In a nice GTA-like touch, Colton could also “horsejack” his foes’ rides, hopping on a horse’s back once its rider has been knocked to the ground. And the third-person camera let us see every inch of the action unfold.
The off-the-horse action is just as frantic, and it also makes good use of the third-person view. Whether Colton is using a shotgun, dual-wielding pistols, tossing a stick of dynamite or throwing a Molotov cocktail, players can maneuver the camera to get the best possible view of their victims, even when using other characters as human shields. When a rifle or other sniper-friendly weapon is equipped, or when players approach a turret or play an on-rails shooter segment in a mine car, the game switches quickly to a first-person view. This lets players aim for arms, legs or any other body part equipped with the location-specific damage model. Couple the location-specific damage model with ragdoll physics, and it’s easy to see the entertainment of aiming at an outlaw’s knee and watching him fall from a saloon’s second floor.
Saloons aren’t the only areas in which players will fight, though. The battles in Gun take place in whorehouses, mining camps, dusty roads, military outposts, alongside trains and in once-abandoned forts now occupied by renegades. What’s more, these environments oftentimes mix it up between indoor and outdoor scenarios, where a battle can seamlessly go from the street to the saloon and back outside, for example. This results in a game with virtually no mid-level loading screens, no interruption of the action and no shortage of Old West violence.
Occasionally the fast pace is interrupted by slowdown, but it’s a type of slowdown gamers are used to seeing: bullet time. In Gun, this slow-motion effect is called “The Edge,” and it’s designed to, creatively enough, give players an edge in battle. The effect seems somewhat force-fed into an Old West game, but it does show off the game’s damage model by giving players an extra second or two to take aim.
For better or worse, the effect also shows off the game’s graphics, which still need some work. Neversoft is aspiring to great things with Gun, and the Old West theme is as much a graphical departure from the company’s Tony Hawk games as it is a gameplay one. But to achieve those great things, especially on the Xbox 360 version, the graphics need a bit more care. The particle effects, animations and environments all showed promise, and it’s easy to see the level of detail Neversoft wants to include, but none of it’s there yet, especially on characters. Gun is early in development, so there’s still time to achieve that level of detail, but to reach the graphical quality of the game’s teaser trailer, Neversoft has a long road in front of it.
Players looking for an online gunfight also have a long road ahead of them, because when Gun ships this holiday season for Xbox 360, Xbox and PS2, it won’t ship with multiplayer support. Neversoft did copious amounts of research into the scenarios and stories players will experience in Gun. But their desire to “fill the hole [and] do a Western done right,” according to Neversoft President Joel Jewett, has left them with a solid single-player-only experience. This won’t be an issue for GTA fans who want to give the Old West a try, but gamers looking for Western multiplayer action will need to look elsewhere.
Gun includes ghost-town shootouts, train hijackings and hundreds of battles in a lawless land. Gun includes the weapons, women and wanton ways you’d expect from its Old-West setting. But when Gun ships later this year, Activision hopes it will also include new insight into what really went on in the Old West. Everyone on the Gun team expects gamers to be shocked, enlightened and surprised by the experiences they encounter. Here’s hoping Neversoft’s entertaining history lesson can deliver what its developers promise. Given their track record, we’re pretty sure it will.
— Jonas Allen
