Gun is a Revisionist Western-themed action-adventure video game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and Xbox 360 (as a launch title) in 2005. The PlayStation Portable version was released a year later under the title Gun: Showdown, this version features new side-missions, a multiplayer mode, and other additions that were not available in the console versions.
During its first month, the game sold 225,000 copies across the four console systems for which it was initially released. The game had sold over 1.4 million units in the United States as of October 2008. It was well received by game critics and won several awards, including GameSpy's Xbox 360 Action Game of the Year.
Gameplay
Gun features an open world environment, including side-missions that add to the story. Players control the protagonist, Colton White, from a third-person perspective. While traveling from town to town, bandit attacks are frequent and players must either escape or defend themselves.
Players can hunt and kill various animals like buffalo, wild horses, and even stray dogs and farm animals. The player can also cause mayhem within communities, but can attract attention from lawmakers and other gunslingers by doing so. They act as gunslingers protecting righteousness or seek reputation as they face resistance fighters, local lawmen, renegade soldiers and vengeful Apaches and Blackfoot. A Town Patience meter goes down every time a civilian is killed. Once the patience meter reaches zero, a showdown ensues between the player and the locals.
Several minigames are included in Gun. As the player progresses through the game, they can choose to complete side missions, including poker tournaments, cattle herding, law enforcement and bounty hunting. Players can purchase upgrades using money obtained from these optional activities and by mining gold veins.
Combat
Players can wield a revolver and switch between rifles, shotguns, various explosives, and bows. There are a variety of types of arrows to choose from, including ordinary, flaming, and, if unlocked, explosive arrows. Throwing knives are available in Gun Showdown. Attacking and killing enemies fills up a Quickdraw gauge which, when activated, slows down time like bullet time, switches the game to a first-person perspective and gives the player unlimited ammunition for a short duration, allowing the player to take on a significant number of enemies.
The player can switch from first person to third person overhead camera with certain weapons. There are two handheld explosives available in the game: dynamite and whiskey bombs. Dynamite explodes after a short delay, while whiskey bombs instantly ignite when they hit the ground. Enemies may roll to attempt to avoid explosives. Barrels of TNT are scattered around the environment and during missions, encouraging players to use barrels to set traps or throw and use the Quickdraw mode to shoot them and detonate the TNT. Land mines are available on the PSP version.
Melee combat is also emphasised, with enemies randomly charging at the player throughout the game. Players can use a bowie knife, a tomahawk and a cavalry saber. They can use enemies as a human shield, and dispatch them by slitting their throats or knocking them out if the enemy has a bounty. Players can also scalp a dying enemy with a scalping knife. Stealth plays a part in many missions as well, and players are encouraged to use bows, melee and, on the PSP version, throwing knives, in such situations. Horseback combat is also featured, and is an important aspect of the game. Fast-paced chases are featured, and players can shoot while riding. Both the player's and the enemies' horses can be killed. While riding a horse players can do close-quarter combat with any melee weapon they possess. Trampling or running over enemies is also a way of dispatching them while on horseback.
Plot
In 1880, Colton White and his father Ned are hunting game along the Missouri River. After Cole saves Ned from a grizzly bear, they board a riverboat to sell the meat. Along the way Cole notices that Ned seems to have other reasons for boarding. The riverboat is suddenly attacked by a murderous preacher named Reverend Josiah Reed and a band of renegade soldiers. After losing ground to the renegades, Cole and Ned are pushed to the back of the boat, Ned tells him to find a whore named Jenny in Dodge City. Ned then reveals he is not Cole's real father, and pushes him over the side to save him from the steamboat's explosion. Several days later, Cole learns from a thief called Honest Tom that everyone aboard the steamboat was murdered by the renegades, including Ned. Although helpful at first, Honest Tom and his friends end up ambushing Cole but he manages to kill them all and take Tom's horse. Cole travels to Dodge City to find the girl named Jenny whom Ned mentioned. After rescuing Jenny from a gang of bandits, Cole learns from her that Reverend Reed came to Dodge from Empire City, and that Empire's Mayor Hoodoo Brown would know of the preacher's whereabouts. After assisting the sheriff in fixing the bridge to out of Dodge, Cole and Jenny travel through the badlands to Empire by stagecoach and barely survive an attack by Apaches.
Upon arriving in Empire City, Colton is made a deputy by Hoodoo and promises to help him find Reed. During a gunfight at the local cattle ranch between the Resistance and the Deputies, Cole is appalled to see Hoodoo's other deputies kill an unarmed couple. Cole then attempts to arrest the deputies but is forced to kill them both when they resist. When Cole confronts the Mayor in his Casino back in Empire City, Hoodoo tells Cole that Reed has captured Jenny and is holding her in his office. Rushing to save her, Cole witnesses Reed murdering Jenny and is then knocked unconscious by Hoodoo. Colton is then brought before Thomas Magruder, Reed and Hoodoo's boss, who had also ordered the Steamboat Massacre and Jenny's murder. After Cole learns Magruder and Ned have history, Magruder orders Colton to be hanged the next morning for Jenny's murder.
Cole is thrown into the Empire jail before his scheduled execution the next day. Here he meets Port, a member of the Resistance, and Soapy Jennings, a safecracker. With Soapy's help, Cole escapes jail and flees Empire with the other two prisoners. Soapy departs for Dodge while Port takes Cole to the Resistance's Hideout, where he meets their leader, Clay Allison. Cole later learns from Clay that he and Ned had served under Magruder during the Civil War, and that the former Confederate Major was searching for Quivira, a lost city of gold, and that his ruthless quest had torn the West apart.
