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Gun is a Revisionist Western-themed video game developed by Neversoft. It was published by Activision for the Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 2. Gun was released in North America on November 8, 2005, and in mid-to late November in Europe. Since October 13, 2006, the game has also been available to buy on Valve's content delivery platform, Steam. It was released for the PlayStation Portable under the title Gun: Showdown on October 10, 2006. It features new side-missions, a multiplayer mode, and other additions that weren't available in the console versions.
un features a free-roaming (open world) environment, including side-missions that add to the story of the game.
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Gun is a Revisionist Western-themed video game developed by Neversoft. It was published by Activision for the Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 2. Gun was released in North America on November 8, 2005, and in mid-to late November in Europe. Since October 13, 2006, the game has also been available to buy on Valve's content delivery platform, Steam. It was released for the PlayStation Portable under the title Gun: Showdown on October 10, 2006. It features new side-missions, a multiplayer mode, and other additions that weren't available in the console versions.
Gameplay
Gun features a free-roaming (open world) environment, including side-missions that add to the story of the game. Gun is played by controlling Colton from a third person perspective, playing much like a generic third-person shooter. Players can wield a revolver and switch between rifles, shotguns, various handheld explosives, and bows. Throwing knives are available in Gun Showdown. Attacking and killing enemies fills up a "Quickdraw" gauge, which when activated slows down time, switches 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 is free to roam the game world on foot or riding a horse, taking optional missions as one pleases as a typical sandbox game. As the player progresses through the game, they can opt to complete side-missions, including poker tournaments, cattle herding, law enforcement and bounty hunting. Using money obtained from these side-missions and finding gold veins, players can purchase upgrades to their items. Gun was marketed through the use of "Last Call Poker" — an alternate reality game from 42 Entertainment.
Synopsis
Setting
Gun is set in the American Old West, specifically Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico in the year 1880.
Characters
Many of these characters were real historical figures, though the game may portray them slightly differently than they actually were.
- Colton "Cole" White (Thomas Jane) - The protagonist and player character of the story. He grew up learning the way of the outdoors from his adoptive father, Ned White. The two made their living hunting game for the steamboats traveling the Missouri River. While aboard one of the local steamboats, Colton and Ned are forced to defend the ship against a band of marauders, where Colton learns Ned is not his biological father, and is thrown overboard just before the boat explodes killing everybody aboard, including Ned. With Ned dead, Colton's quest to find out about his true past begins. Cole meets many characters during his adventure, some become his allies while others turn out to be the utmost of enemies. Colton is a skilled marksman, and is always willing to stand up for what is right.
- Soapy Jennings (Dave Wittenberg) - A safe cracker and more than likely Colton's closest ally during his journey, Soapy is a little too smart and cocky for his own good. Though he's a smooth talker, he is weak physically and tends to get himself into trouble, where as Cole is constantly bailing him out. Soapy's two specialties are cracking safes and cheating in poker; two major strikes against him in a place like the Old West. During the ride to Piper Lake from the Badlands, he confides to Cole the origin of his nickname: he was cornered in a lady friend's bedroom by her husband, and was forced to hide inside the shaft of her water closet - after which he had to scrub for three days before he could get the smell off of him.
- Thomas "Tom" Magruder (Lance Henriksen) - The main antagonist of the story. He is the unofficial boss of the West, in charge of the railroads being installed right in the middle of Apache Indian territory. Magruder was a Confederate major during the Civil War and led a group of soldiers, which included Clay Allison, to find the mythical city of gold, Quivira. The war ended, but Magruder's mission did not. He has made it his ultimate goal in life to find the lost city of gold and is willing to do anything to accomplish it. Margruder meets his end when he is crushed to death during a cave-in at a mine.
- Ned White (Kris Kristofferson) - Colton's adoptive father. He raised the boy to manhood under the false pretense of being his real father. Right before his death, he confesses part of the truth to Colton and sends him on his quest to find out the truth. Ned is a well-trained outdoorsman and makes his living selling animal skins and carcasses to the local riverboats sailing down the Missouri River.
- Reverend Josiah Reed (Brad Dourif) - A hired killer and an extremely evil man, Reed masquerades as a man of the cloth to gain the trust of those he wishes to betray or take advantage of. Reed is skilled with all manner of bladed weapons and rides a horse dressed in heavy armor. Employed by Magruder, he is a merely a puppet in Magruder's game to take control of the area. He is eventually killed by Cole in revenge for the death of Jenny.
- Jenny (Kath Soucie) - A prostitute and the main attraction of the Alhambra Saloon in Dodge City. Jenny is tired of the small-town life and is anxiously waiting the completion of the bridge in town so she can travel south to New Mexico to Empire City. She proves to be a valuable ally to Colton, but is killed by Reed. (In the mission immediately afterward, there are multiple groups of enemies that Colton must sneak up on. Some of them, when you get close enough to them, will sing a song called "Old Jenny," with the opening lines "There once was a Dodge City Maid, who was a whore by trade...")
- Clay Allison (Tom Skerritt) - The leader of the resistance group fighting against Hoodoo Brown's corrupt reign over Empire City. He and his followers work closely with the Apache Indians, dedicated to keeping Magruder and his men out of the frontier and restore some dignity to the Old West. Clay is a man with good intentions but a dark past. After Colton joins the Resistance, he learns that Clay fought alongside both Ned and Magruder during the Civil War, and Clay thought that Magruder had killed Ned several years before. (Historically, the real Clay Allison was a gunfighter whose reputation seemed to be, unusually, not exaggerated)
- Hollister (Marc Graue) - More than likely the most skilled and feared cowboy in the Old West. Hollister commands a small group of mercenary ex-soldiers in Magruder's pay. Hollister led the raid on the steamboat in which Ned was killed. He runs a fort alongside the Missouri River, and is big, strong, and extremely intimidating. Hollister's followers worship him like a god, as they are too afraid to question his authority. Hollister is a heavy drinker and has a love for women, but he also has an inexplicable hatred for the Native Americans, whose land he enjoys stealing. He ultimately kills himself in a suicide bombing attempt against Cole, when he fails to reach him in time.
- Fights-At-Dawn (Eric Schweig) - The Blackfoot chief and a proud warrior. He is deeply concerned for the future of his tribe and saddened by the white man's arbitrary murder and theft. He befriends Colton, and recalls a time when Cole was younger, when he was attacked by a cougar. It was a shaman of Fights-At-Dawn's tribe who helped nurse Colton back to health. Colton was said to be stronger and faster after this.
- Port (Bryce Johnson) - A member of the Resistance. Port introduces Colton to Clay and the other members of the anti-Magruder coalition. Port is an avid horseman and an excellent sharpshooter with a pistol. He is often the first person to volunteer for all of Clay's crazy plans. He torched a printing press in Empire City, and got thrown in the local prison, which is where he met Cole and Soapy. The three make a plan to escape on the night they spent in jail, and did so before the first sign of dawn. Port is last seen helping Cole fight off Magruder's men at the turn table in the mine.
- Mayor Hoodoo Brown (Ron Perlman) - The fast-talking mayor of Empire City. Hoodoo takes orders from Thomas Magruder, although his true goal is to make his city great rather than simply to line his own pockets. Due to his dirty practices, Hoodoo has many enemies and therefore has hired two professional gunslingers, J.J. Webb and Dave Rudabaugh, as personal bodyguards. He himself is a skilled gunfighter. The mayor pretends to hire Colton as another bodyguard, but in fact intends to set him up and is killed in a firefight with Cole.
- Patrick Denton - The optimistic sheriff of Dodge City. He hires Colton to protect the local bridge from renegade Apache while imported carpenters from China finish building it. Later in the story, Denton is tied up and placed by the railroad tracks while Soapy is taken to the gallows to be hanged. Colton arrives in town just in time to free Denton and head to the top of the water tower to snipe out the men attempting to lynch Soapy.
- Dutchie - An extremely muscular man and Magruder's personal bodyguard. He rarely speaks and is often shown doing all the dirty work for Magruder.
- Many Wounds (Eric Schweig) - An Apache Indian who gave Colton to Ned when he was only a baby. Later in the story, Many Wounds, becomes a trusted ally of Colton and helps him out with Cole's fight against Magruder.
- J.J. Webb (John Getz) & Dirty Dave Rudabaugh (Wade Williams) - Two professional gunfighters hired by Hoodoo Brown as his personal bodyguards. They also serve as unofficial sheriffs for Empire City. He and Rudabaugh trick Colton into following them to a farm on the outskirts of Empire City, and engage him in a gun showdown of two vs. one.
- Chavez y Chavez (Armando Valdes-Kennedy) - A Mexican cowboy and a member of the Resistance. He, along with Port, serves as one of Allison's closest lieutenants. He is last seen helping Cole defend the Resistance camp. He is also seen in the game end credits.
- Sadie - A prostitute aboard the steamboat, the Morning Star, extremely close to Ned. She steals a piece of the Quivara cross from Magruder and takes it to Ned, but is killed by Reed when she refuses to reveal its location. Jenny mentions that she is the woman in the picture above the bar in the Alhambra.
- Honest Tom (Frank Collison) - A Bandit traveling the banks of the Missouri River. He wages his horse that he can beat Colton in a race on horseback. When he loses he pretends to let the horse go fair and square, but when Cole's back is turned he raises his gun and his two thugs come out from hiding to engage Colton in combat.
- Quick Killer - The leader of the band of renegade Apache Indians attacking the bridge in Dodge City. His weapon of choice is his trusted tomahawk, and he and his fellow tribe members engage Colton and Denton in combat atop the constructed bridge. His son is one of the Indians rescued by Colton in the Hollister Fort Mission. He states that his father was murdered by a gunman while trying to stop a construction that would make a devise run through his land. He states this if you wait in front of the third rescued Indian after he is rescued getting beaten by a soldier.
Plot
Gun revolves around a man named Colton White in 1880 who goes out to avenge the death of his father and gets caught up in the search for a city of gold.
Sales and reception
The game sold 225,000 units across the four systems it was initially released for. According to TRST sales data the game has sold over 1.4 million units in the US (as of October 2008). It was well-received by professional game reviewers and Activision has noted that Gun sold the best among new video game properties.
Controversy
Activision has responded to The Association for American Indian Development's petition, which demands a product recall of Gun on the grounds that the game inaccurately depicts the Apache people using degrading and harmful content. The publisher issued this brief statement:
Sequel
A sequel has not officially been announced, but rumors of a sequel to the game started in February 2006 when publisher Activision hinted that a sequel may be on the way. More rumors began in September 2007 when a poster for "Gun: Magruder's Ghost" was spotted in a demo for Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, also a Neversoft title. While some have taken the poster as an announcement, most still regard it with some speculation since there has been no formal announcement from Neversoft. IGN has also added the game as "other game by Activision". According to Joystiq, publisher Activision has apparently hinted during a financial conference that a sequel may be in production.
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