Gun

Gun has so much going for it, but it's such a short game that as soon are you build up your stats and really get going...there's no more of it to play. Which is quite annoying.

You play as Colton White (Thomas Jane) in a free-roaming western landscape. You can grab whatever horse you want, kill who you feel and take-on a fair amount of side-missions if you feel like taking a break from the main story, which is itself interesting but way too short.

The villains are all evil bastards but brilliantly acted by the likes of Brad Dourif, Ron Pearlman and Lance Henriksen. Other actors with cool voices like Kris Kristofferson and Tom Skerritt fill out supporting roles and the dialogue and cut-scenes are all pretty good and avoid the unnatural, forced feel that many video games have. Many of the characters and situations could have been fleshed out more but they merely conveniently contribute to the slight 'search for a hidden goldmine' plot.

The action of the game is brilliantly done (the controls take a little practice though), with great use of slow-motion when blowing large chunks of bad guy heads off. Weapons range from twin guns, rifles and shotguns to swords, bows, dynamite and whisky bombs. You can even scalp people, but it adds nothing to stats, so it's kind of pointless. Side missions can either be errand boy tasks, rounding up cattle or killing random bad guys. The destruction factor could have been higher, but you could say that about a lot of games.

The actual gameplay universe is quite small too. But it still feels superficially expansive. With loads of little valleys, railroad tracks and and coyote trails it can be fun exploring, but you'll get familiar with it too quickly.

My fave thing about this game however is the music. It's a shame it's not available on CD because it really is exciting and echoes John Barry's main theme to Dances With Wolves. With so many lesser video game scores getting CD releases these days I wouldn't be too surprised if the Gun score came out eventually.

Add it all up and you have a fun, if all too slight, game that is worth it if you can pick it up half price (like I did) but not a full RRP. If only they made it longer, we could have a classic.