So in case you haven’t listened to our most recent episode of Game Club (and shame on you if you haven’t), our next game up is Activision/Neversoft’s Gun, released in November 2005. We should be recording the first episode next Monday evening for a late night or early Tuesday release, barring any catastrophes,and we’ll be playing through Chapter 5, “The Red Hand Gang”. With that in mind, let the discussions begin! After the proverbial jump, we’ll go a little into our reasons behind picking Gun for the show.
There were a number of really great suggestions this time around for Game Club, but after making our nominations and listening to you all in the comments, Gun in particular stood out for a few reasons.
One of the main points of Game Club is to get together to play through and talk about a game that may have been warmly received (to varying degrees) but was possibly overlooked. Gun released just before the insanity of the Xbox 360 launch, and amidst panicked gamers trying to figure out if their pre-order for the system would be honored and general excitement over the beginning of the “next-generation” of systems, it sort of got overlooked despite reviewing pretty well.
Gun tells the tale of Colton White in his quest for revenge after the murder of his adoptive father, which leads to a race to find a lost city of gold. It’s pulpy and violent and gloriously well cast; the voice over crew includes Thomas (“The (real goddamned) Punisher”) Jane as Colton (Colt), the player character, Kris Kristofferson as Ned White, Colt’s adoptive father, Lance (“Bishop”) Henriksen as Thomas Macgruder, the game’s big bad, and also features Brad Dourif, Tom (motherfucking) Skerritt, Ron (“I’m in everything”) Perlman, and a host of others. In concert with a pretty great script for the medium, and some great characterizations and visual design, Gun has a lot to offer, even if it isn’t perfect.
Another consideration we made this time around was accessibility. We really liked that our last game was available on multiple platforms, enabling more people to join in than perhaps were able to for the first go-round. Gun takes that even further: you can find it on PS2, Gamecube (and therefore Wii), Xbox, Xbox 360, PC, and even the PSP. If you only own a DS, you are shit out of luck on this one, unfortunately, but otherwise, all of the bases are covered, and only the PSP version has additional content, I believe, though it is otherwise identical gameplay and story-wise. Also, per our unofficial retailer checks over the last year, you can still generally find Gun without too much trouble. This criteria was important after our strange issues locating Bully last time around, and unfortunately, led to an unsightly disqualification of Knights of the Old Republic for this installment.
Finally, some warnings for more sensitive listeners (although who you are, i have no idea): Gun is excessively violent and gory, is filled (think Deadwood) with profanity, has literal old west whores, and contains violence against women. Also, there was controversy over its portrayal of indigenous peoples after its release, which we will probably talk about at some point. If you happen to be of Apache (or any tribe really) descent, we would really like to hear your opinions about it in particular.
With that, go get started!
-Arthur
Buying Gun tomorrow. Going to try and find it new (which will be sad if I can find it)
GUN is an aweome game, and I can finally play through a Game Club without having to hunt for a copy of the game. YAY! Playstation 2 version.
Play through Hitman: Blood Money, please. I love that game.
Will have to grab a copy and join in. I only played this for an hour at friend’s when he rented it. All I remember is a guy who is “might famished” and placing barrels of tnt next to some horses, shooting it, and watching legs fly everywhere. I know, I know, I’m a terrible person for blowing up fake horses.
Got this yesterday for 360 partly for easy achievements. I remember playing this a while back on the Gamecube but i didn’t finish it. One problem i have with he game so far is I can’t get the aiming to feel right. The default sensitivity seems to unresponsive and I’m having trouble controlling the higher sensitivity levels but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
The combat also seems a bit clunky and probably could have benefited from a cover system but i realize this game came out before games like Gears. During battles i usually find myself just standing out in the open getting shot from all angles but there’s always enough whiskey lying around to keep me alive.
Otherwise it’s a really fun game, I love the upgrade system can’t wait to be running around with some fully upgraded weapons.
Keep up the great work guys can’t wait for the next episode.
Need some advice: should I get the PS2 or PC version?
I’d get the PS2 version. You can find it used at gamestop for $4.99. The PC version is $19.99 to download off steam or direct2drive and from what I learned during my brief research comparing all the various versions, the PC port doesn’t have much better graphics like a lot of PC ports might have over their console brethren.
I contemplated getting the PC version myself but at the end of the day, you can’t beat $4.99.
Great choice: available on many platforms, cheap and most importantly it is really fun and not frustrating (due to really good checkpoints!).
I bought the 360 version cheap a week ago after it was suggested here. I didn’t expect it would be picked and already started it, but now I will wait until the podcast has catched up and then progress along with it.
Keep up the good work! Game Club and Rebel.fm have become my favorite Podcasts.
Greetings from Germany!
Nice, something that I already have and am already a good ways into. FYI, it’s on Steam, and I’m pretty sure it’s only $10. I have a 360 copy that I picked up around Christmas time for cheap.
Trying to figure out how I can check what chapter I’m on. Pause menu says 40% through.
Holy cow, it’s $20 on Steam still. Forgot, it’s an Activsion game. Their Steam prices do a bad job of coming down
Sweet I already own this on Xbox 359 and never got around to playing past a few hours.
Looks like I’ll be sitting this one out and just listen as I already played and beat the game on the Gamecube.
It’s fun and short, but I don’t think I can bring myself to suffer through the shooting while on horseback sequences again.
Will be picking it up this weekend.
The super gory violence stuff is a bit limited though. Even when the big bad guy buys it the camera turns away.
It’s just the women who get killed off in the most graphic, disturbingly explicit and slow manner.
(the people who made ‘Gun’ may have a few .. issues)
I’m looking forward to hearing the discussion on this game – I found it to be a very good western story in general, even if it does start to feel a little like Indiana Jones: Episode One.
I just started a save from a few months ago and got to the last battle (which I have never finished), and thought to myself, “How many horses did I kill this game?” Because riding your horse too hard is hilarious the first couple times you do it.
I’ll start the game over tonight and pay closer attention and add some opinions about gameplay then.
I haven’t started playing Gun yet, but the back of the box isn’t inspiring a lot of confidence. (I have the 360 version)There are no reins (or even a bit for that matter) in order for the main character to control the horse he’s riding. With a lot of training you can train a horse to respond to only changes in weight for commands, but something tells me Colton isn’t the horse whisperer . . .
I must say that I am disapointed by the PC version…
I feel that I should have picked it up for 360, but I am a gamer who lives at his desk. The PC version has no widescreen support, and the resolutions ar few to choose from. The GFX at best are PS2.
The good news is that it is fun. Corney but great story, fast action and at least you can use a 360 controller.
I wished I picked this up sooner.
Listeners of the 1up podcast featuring backlog are familiar with the concept. Games should be available on at least 2 systems but 3 is even better, and nearly all the games have been above average but didn’t exactly enjoy huge sales: Beyond Good & Evil (THE poster child of underrated video games), Shadow of the Colossus, Indigo Prophecy, etc.
Gun is a very logical, unsurprising pick.
That’s why I chuckle when people suggest exclusives that came out a year ago. Fable 2? Not happening.
Gun has deeply offended my peoples for great ages. It is a sad time on my reservation. We long for the days when we were presented with pride like in Sunset Riders……It’s POW WOW time!
I’ve to agree with ParksCo2, the resolution options really limit the PC version. I wish I had picked up the 360 version
I’m playing the 360 version and the graphics still look like PS2 graphics. You’re not missing much
Gonna have to get this online, but I’m still really looking forward to playing through it alongside everyone on this stie as well as the podcasters of course. Great choice! Can’t wait to get started!
Ahh, so the decision on which game we should play was based on “Which game is available on the most systems” rather than “Which game is more enjoyable”, or even “Which game has the most variation in gameplay experiences for each individual?”
I must admit, I am a little drunk right now so my opinions might be a bit harsh/unfair/irrelevant(?). But seriously, everyone will experience Gun the same way. The fact that KotOR is only available on Xbox, Xbox 360, PC and Mac surely isn’t enough reason not to play that instead. KotOR is perfect because it is very unlikely that any two people will experience the game the same way. Whereas Gun is ultimately more linear, and as I’ve mentioned previously, you can achieve 100% completion in much less than two days.
Regardless, I’m sure KotOR will still be a likely choice for the next Game Club (perhaps people should start searching for copies now so we are all prepared for it?). I’m only annoyed this time around (as I’ve mentioned in the comments for Bully Episode 4) because I spent the last week researching the character guides (and leveling guides, etc.) for the game to give my character the best possible stats.
I was incredibly excited to start playing through it with the guys this week, and now I’m torn on whether to wait a week or two for these episodes for Gun to be over and done with, or just start playing now. I would certainly enjoy playing KotOR much more with the Rebel FM crew is playing through it at the same time. So I suppose I can wait for you guys to get through Gun (which honestly, and hopefully, shouldn’t take very long).
Am I just being very selfish (and drunk) or are there others who were really hoping KotOR would be up this time around?
Oh and I forgot to mention that a lot of elements in Gun are a bit too similar to that of Bully (well, minus the guns, gore and the western setting).
I urge everyone to start seeking out copies of KotOR now, because it probably will be difficult to find a copy. Although I’m sure most people would know someone who already owns a copy if it’s not available anywhere else. Just do your best to secure a copy as soon as you can.
dude…you’re drunk at before 10 AM?
Let’s not complicate this. The goal is to find a game that doesn’t totally suck, and one which is available on a variety of systems so that the majority of the listenership doesn’t have to buy a console they don’t have, just to play a game that “doesn’t totally suck”.
It’s not rocket science.
That said, I own Kotor on PC and I’ve tried to play it twice and both times I lost interest. I like PLAYING my games, not reading them. And when I am playing them, I want the combat to be at least somewhat interesting, instead of queueing up attacks and then watching. Realistically, the only time you play KOTOR, in it’s 50 hours of gameplay, is when you’re moving your character around. No thanks.
“dude…you’re drunk before 10 AM?”
Don’t judge based on that, that’s a typical Wednesday for me.
The only thing worse than Nerd-Rage is drunken Nerd-Rage.
Re: Bully chick fights
Once I made out with a girl in front of two others, and one of them kicked me in the nuts.
Darn and I just got a game from gamefly.
I opted for PC and have also discovered the limiting resolution options, though I’m also playing on a laptop that wasn’t made for games. Everything is at the lowest setting, and playing at native resolution to my screen causes the game to crash. Good times. It does add to the humour of the game though as you get to witness such things as a steam boat apparently blowing up during a cut scene, when all you see around it is a brown haze.
Although i’m having great fun with the game it seems too easy on Normal. The aim assist is more than forgiving, though I don’t know if this might be because the game was designed around it being played with a controller and not keyboard and mouse?
The pacing also seems way too fast. I literally blasted through the whole first segment in about 30minutes, and on a little further before realizing i’d overshot my mark for this week. What seems odd is it started out really slow whilst you relaxed with Ned in the woods quietly shooting birds. Get on that boat and suddenly you’re smacked in the face by a cutscene every five minutes and introduced to a a variety of different gameplay mechanics (slow motion shooting, then an on rails canon, and then the horse riding.)
Story so far is so so, and the characters are unmemorable, but they add enough entertainment to the overall experience so i’m not complaining.
I’m hoping it slows down a little bit in it’s pacing but other than that i’m enjoying another game club.
Thanks, really enjoying the podcast.
A friend of mine saw this being played and described it as one of the most sexist, racist, awful and disgusting things she’s seen. She shamed me for being a gamer since she assumed this is what I played. I figured it was one of those games that made the industry look bad so I never tried it (it didn’t appeal even before her description) but I’m curious to see what you guys have to say about it.
I still vote KOTOR. Convenience be damned.
Keep up the good work. I appreciate your efforts, especially now since you’re juggling jobs.
I remember playing through the entire game and it not being quite as horrible and disgusting as your friend claims. Sure its very gory and it might have had some racially insensitive depictions about Native Americans (it’s set in the old west), but other than that it was pretty much an open world game with a great story. There are a few cutscenes early in the game that may have sparked the sexist comment but that’s purely for storytelling, any other violence against women, men, or animal is pretty much the same as in Grand Theft Auto, all based on player choice.
I think you should try it, its not quite the ‘Postal 2′ that you seem to think of it as.
I can’t wait to play this again. I did have it on 360 and played it through, but lent that out to my brother and rather than get him to post it I got a ps2 copy off ebay for 99p (£1.50 I think, not sure with current exchange rates).
Its a great game! I can just remember getting fustrated with some of the side missions, particularly finding all of the gold deposits.
I love the horse riding in this game. There’s nothing more exhilirating than hammering at full speed through a tight canyon. I think the controls find the right balance between realism and arcade.
Although you’re kind of a whore with your horses. Never getting attached to just one, always jumping on another when convienient. In Shadow of the Colossus I felt like I’d developed a sort of Atreyu/Artax connection with my faithful steed. Having the horse be a character would’ve been a nice addition.
Yeah, I first played this after finishing SotC (and crying like a little girl with a skinned knee when Agro falls. And comes back.) I thought that from the first fight with Honest Tom and him making such a big deal about giving you the horse, and you putting up the effort to fight his gang to take the horse, that you would use that one horse for the whole game.
I’m pretty surprised you just abandoned your horse so soon, and I agree it was a missed opportunity not to use a horse as a story element. I think people get way more attached to animals than people in any story telling medium, unless you hate animals. In fallout 3 if one of my companions died I’d be like fuck it they were stupid and deserved to die, but if Dogmeat died I’d flip out and load my save file back.
Just got to the first stopping point. This will be my third playthrough, although I have never completed the game (I have got all the way to the last boss, though).
Some thoughts:
Kris Kristofferson is super awesome as the voice of your dad.
When you first see the steamboat pull up, even though the graphics are kinda lacking (PS2 version, at least), the crescendo of the music and the title card makes that scene seem super epic.
Sadie catching a hatchet to the back of her head (thru the parasol) is cheezily awesome.
Head shots are very very satisfying. So is killing Honest Tom. FRONTIER JUSTICE ALL THE WAY
I have killed about five horses by riding them too hard.
I really like that after you save the Alhambra from burning down, Colton goes back inside. To make sure he comes back outside in old west duel fashion.
I’m playing on normal, and it seems like the quickdraw is very very overpowered. Actually, the other times I played through the game, I really only had trouble at two points because of the quickdraw. Not that I mind, I like to be able to get through my games, not be so frustrated I ragequit. Anyone else feel this way?
Also, Denton uses the proper nomenclature when referring to the railroad workers.
You know, I never played through any of the backlog games even though I listened to the podcasts, and didn’t play through call of whatever. But I did play through Bully while listening to game club. I never had the balls to post any thoughts about it, but fuck it, I’m gonna start now.
Anyways, I just found five bucks in the clothes drier, so I’m off to pick up a copy. I guess I’ll have to find a quarter in the car to pay the sales tax.
Also, I love listening to Rebel FM podcasts. They have become my preferred podcast when traveling to and from work. Keep up the good work.
And farts pick up really well on your mics.
Anybody know how similar the PSP version of Gun is to the other versions?
My friend has it, and I’m thinking about borrowing it to play for Game Club.
It’s going to be quite tough to play without the 2nd analog stick. I’d just pick up a cheap PS2 copy or splurge for the 360 version.
Im Not Sure Exactly Where to stop at stood I Be In Empire Already?
How About These?I haven’t played them and kind of regret that.
Splinter Cell Double Agent
God Hand
Grim Grimoire
The Warriors
Rogue Galaxy
Destroy all Humans 1 or 2
Empire is a couple missions too far – I think we’re supposed to stop before we help Denton protect the Chinese railroad workers from the Apaches.
The last mission that is supposed to be played through is after you save Jennie and the bar.
Ok i just got the game today for the PC and did the tutorial. The quick draw time is cool btw. But the thing that hit me the most is how awesome the soundtack is! does anyone know where i can get it? the music is in a .dat file so i cant get it from the game files.
Oh man, the music is really awesome…for some reason, it reminds me of Earth. Especially the Hex: Or Printing In the Infernal Method album.
I finished up through this weeks cut off point.
I suppose I’m spoiled with with current gen graphics, because I was nearly falling off the couch laughing at the “pine needle-grass” on the ground at the very start of the game that is just a flat color/texture over the flat polygons that make up the ground.
I’m still miffed about the reins on the horses – they occasionally appear in cut scenes but are missing in-engine.
Not to mention, in all my years of riding, that I have yet to meet a horse that could kill a fully grown buffalo by running into it.
However, the voice acting is really good. It makes me think that this game was meant for a wider audience that it ever received; and I get a real kick out of taking a swig from a whiskey bottle to restore health!
Of all the genres in gaming, I still think that the wild west is far under used. It’s America’s fantasy setting of adventure much like the medieval times of Europe are the base setting for so many high fantasy adventures.
The Wild West’s biggest problem tho is, while I’m enjoying the overall feel and atmosphere of GUN, in the back of my head I can’t help but think that somewhere in this world my ancestors are slaves on a plantation somewhere and Native Americans are being kicked off their land and slaughtered.
The reality of the old west kinda is a background fun killer.
I wish GUN had gone the Wild ARMs route of a fantasy wild west setting that just allows for the same fun and feel without all the negative reality that went on in the wild west.
I can’t help but raise an eyebrow when I’m blowing away Indians yelling, “Yai-yai-yai!” But I would have NOOOOO problems shooting a wild elf or orc in the head and maybe forcing his monster best friend to watch me do it.
No one has sympathy for a fantasy monster… you don’t need to!
Anyway, keep on, keepin’ on!
-Mr. Justice
It made me feel a little funny too.
I’m doing a lot of research right now for an anthro class on the cultural appropriation (stealing) of the religious traditions of the Lakota, and have been reading a lot about Wounded Knee and the breaking of treaties by the American government so that gold could be mined in the black hills.
Colton doesn’t feel like much of a hero when he’s mowing down Apache trying to protect ancestral lands. I think that part could of been done in a somewhat more sensitive way.
I realize I’m looking at this in an anachronistic way, but not sure it’s ok to be completely culturally insensitive in a game made in 2005 just because the people’s mind sets in the 1800S was not.
A second opinion.
This game is truly a racist reflection of the times, which is a little hard to hear. However, it was pretty common to represent the old west just like this in every movie before the 1990′s, it’s only recently we’ve become so “correct”.
Also, all the other settings we like throughout history for adventure were equally, if not exceedingly, horrific and racist. Most people were horribly abused in medieval times, far more races and classes suffered then than in the late 1800′s…at least some poor people had a chance.
And hey, this game hates the Irish! I enjoy my “race” getting it from time to time, been almost 50 years since we couldn’t get a decent job anywhere in the country.
Hey guys. I’ve listened to every Game Club going back to the first 1UP FM backlog, but this is my first time playing along.
I want to say how much I really love the setting of Gun. The wild west is such a bad ass period and yet it’s seemingly never utilized. Red Dead Revolver is the only other game that comes to mind from the recent past. I’m just wondering why that is since it seems everyone loves a good western.
I like how they didn’t pull any punches with this game. The whore getting ‘hawked in the skull at the beginning caught me off guard. So far, I can definitely see how those easily offended could have problems with this game, but from what I see the developers were just depicting the frontier for the lawless, violent, saloon and cathouse as the economic lifeblood of the town wilderness that it was.
One thing did give me a chuckle though: Since when were there zombies in the old west? The bad guys in the opening sequence had me asking whether I was playing a Dawn of the Dead: Tombstone edition. Are they emaciated? Abused? Anorexic? Is there any historical reference to connect them with?
The soldiers at the beginning are Renegade Confederates – deserters from the Civil War who never really stopped fighting it…they wear their military uniform and face paint, like to scalp, and for some reason really really hate Native Americans. Honest Tom kinda mentions the scalping part, but they get talked about a little later on in the game too. Kind of like an adaptation of William Quantrill:
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/MO-Quantrill.html
Forgot I can’t post links without it being moderated!
here’s what I said:
The soldiers at the beginning are Renegade Confederates – deserters from the Civil War who never really stopped fighting it…they wear their military uniform and face paint, like to scalp, and for some reason really really hate Native Americans. Honest Tom kinda mentions the scalping part, but they get talked about a little later on in the game too. Kind of like an adaptation of William Quantrill.
He defected to the Confederacy in the 1860s, grew a band of marauders 100 deep (including Jesse James), and used the chaos of the Civil War to basically kill anything that moved.
obviously this is a reply to Bad Decisions! stupid no edit or delete option…
Shall have to dig out my original Xbox copy of this then, wish it was backwards compatible, guess it never will be with there being a 360 version. Just hope my Xbox plays nice, the disk drive is an inconsistent bitch.
Look forward to playing along with this game club.
Regarding the Indians, there is really no way to be sensitive about it and still make the game fun.
It’s like that Six Days in Fallujah game people were talking about.
I’m sorry, but as neat a curiosity of a game that would be…. NO! Nobody wants to feel bad about slinging their guns and blowing away opponents.
Sure they make Indians look like savages, but they also go out of the way to make the non-Indian bad guys you blow away in this game look either like zombies or dirty half orcs.
If we’re going to have have a fun game, you gotta make it fun to blow the heads off your opponents. I don’t wanna feel bad about the drunk who’s found himself with nowhere else to go in life but the bottom of a bottle and the business end of my Remington.
They could of just left the killing the Indians out of it. If you had a game set in the south it wouldn’t necessary entail blowing away a group of rebel slaves – even though that would also be appropriate to the 1800s. Fun does not have to equal insensitive.
With a cowboy adventure tho and stepping in to the wild, you kiiiiinda wanna have “Indian” opponents tho. You know.. “cowboys and indians.”
And blowing away slaves, with the current consumer market for video games and the world we’re in there is NOOOOOO way that can even be acknowledged or portrayed that Neversoft would be able to get away with. And that’s never been a part of the wild west fantasy that anyone sane has wanted to enjoy… at least in my time.
But as things are in our world currently, there just wouldn’t be that many consumers that are of Indian decent that would rise up and cause a ruckus.
I’m not saying it’s right, just saying… it’s how it is.
And again, why I wish they’d taken what they had and then hired a writer to create a wild with mythos over a fantasy world setting, so you didn’t have to worry about any of it and I’d be making monsters eat my six shooters.
It doesn’t bother me >that< much. I’m still really enjoying the game and surviving Indian warrior attacks. It’s just a tiny mental itch that I wish wasn’t there.
Also not all Indians in the game are negatively represented. We all have to really come to terms with the fact that Indians were the enemy of the Cowboy. Yeah, it’s true. We took there land but it wouldn’t be the first time a people or culture was wiped out by another. It even happens today. We really should stop being so P.C. about this. The is a Cowboy western story, written from a Cowboys point of view. Not an Indian one. There are other games that push the Indian point of view as well.
So I too accidentally played past the part I was supposed to. I eventually checked a guide and saw I went a mission too far. Either way I’m really enjoying the game so far. I like the structure of the open world and am one of those gamers that loves doing side missions and getting 100% completion. The second I saw stat and weapon upgrades I became very excited about this game.
The story is interesting so far. It’s nothing mind blowing but I’m definitely enjoying it. The voice acting is absolutely phenomenal so far. Unfortunately there’s a lot of voice clips that replay in the background during missions that gets really grating, but I get annoyed whenever games do that. Other then that the audio work and music is spot on.
I’m playing on PS2 and the graphics are kind of rough. I have trouble seeing what the fuck is going on in dark areas, which sucks because there’s a lot of dark areas. Also pre-cover sticking is driving me insane, and leaning left and right is frustrating as all hell. I must say I do appreciate the excellent check point system; it still baffles me why Rockstar refuses to get their head out of their ass about this. It’s almost mind blowing that Grand Theft Auto 4 came after this game and still refuses to handle this properly.
As for the racial stuff, I think it adds to the atmosphere. This was a war against the Native Americans at the time, sure it wasn’t a very justified or fair war, but it happened none the less. I have no problem killing them in masses and then scalping them, even though scalping doesn’t do me any good for some lame reason (I’m going to keep doing it anyway because it amuses me.) I don’t really care about racism or any of that stuff, and it’s never bothered me. It’s just how people were then, and I don’t really need it sugarcoated for me. I’m not trying to say if you feel uncomfortable or offended your wrong, I’m just saying that I don’t care at all. None of it bothers me in the slightest.
Great choice guys! I’m glad you keep picking games I haven’t played yet.
I’ve only played through the defeat of the Red Hand Gang so far, so I’ve only come across Native Americans in the opening slaughter scene – where they come out of the dust cloud not like men but like forces of nature. Which is pretty much a cinematic Western view of the Native Americans – they’re the opposite of civilization (and so they serve to be conquered, converted, or to teach us what we’ve forgotten, depending on your view of civilization)
There’s a lot of other cinematic Western tropes here – the mistrust of the religious man (though instead of being labeled incompetent or ineffectual through a feminized character, he’s mad and violent); the hooker with the heart of gold; prevalence of transportation technology (the steamboat and the railway) as civilizing forces open to attack…
It’s similar to Joss Whedon’s Firefly, in that it pulls general Western influences from a popular notion of the genre and then occasionally referencing specifics.
Now,to pull this away from Intro to Film Studies territory:
Having to kill buffalo as part of the horseback riding tutorial reminded me of hunting in Oregon Trail, where you’d shoot everything you can even though you could only carry 200lbs of meat back to the wagon. Both made me think, “Huh. If this was their approach to the buffalo, no wonder they were almost hunted to extinction.”
The combat (on normal, at least) isn’t too difficult, but I like that because it adds a spaghetti Western feeling to the combat. It captures the feeling of lazy ease that you see when The Man with No Name takes out a group of gunfighters without breaking a sweat.
I’ve noticed I keep taking whatever fucking horse I want whenever I want regardless of who’s it is. I guess it doesn’t really matter, but I’m definitely going to start referring to this game as Grand Theft Pony.
I call it Grand Theft Auto:Episode One.
And about leaning, this is my third time playing the game, and I have never used the lean buttons…they just don’t work. Most times, it’s faster to just strafe out of cover.
Yeah the camera and reitcle fuck up pretty hardcore making leaning damn near useless.
OK, I have it on PC and I’m playing it now. It seems a lot more fun than I remember, though maybe because I’m using a 360 pad this time. Using the keyboard and mouse is usually my preference but this game feels better with the pad.
It’s been 4 whole arcs of Backlog/Game Club since there was a game I was remotely interested in playing. And to think the segment started out so strongly… *sigh*
I thought the point was that you played the games whether you really wanted to or not, kind of like your parents making you eat your veggies. Usually I find that I like the games more than I thought I would, especially with the game club podcast as the salt and butter that makes them go down easier
I love this game a lot. I grew up with western movies and I had never played a game as a cowboy. It really brought back memories of all the movies that I watched when I was younger.
After finishing my Bully playthrough with you guys, I posted a review in HD on YouTube. So check it out. I’m not all that happy with it, but its only my 2nd review and I have the flu (swine?) right now. Thanks for any feedback! I’ll be doing one for Gun too.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJgTWyaCJdY
Just bought it two days ago and I already beat it (100%)… I guess I was used to the pace of Bully still
I really wish I hadn’t because now I might forget what I thought about it as the shows come out.. oh well, my mistake!
look at bestbuy, they always have tons of them, im getting a copy sunday
I don’t know if I will be the first American Indian to post yet but here goes.
I am a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, a tribe in South Dakota.
Playing through this game is always an awkward thing for me. I refuse to be immersed at the battles with Apaches and usually try to get others to play through them for me or take an element out of those parts, like cutting out the audio or playing something else over it. In the end, I still have never finished it for this reason, but I am dedicated finish it this time around.
My beef with the game and its racism isn’t necessarily for the exact same reasons that other American Indian tribes spoke out against it. I don’t find that this game is outright advocating violence against American Indian peoples. I don’t think anyone would outright advocate the murder of cultural groups.(Well…except for actual hate groups) From what I understand, there is a story context for the Indian killing that comes full circle for the main character… but I could be wrong about this. I still have never finished it.
Where I do stand in agreement with American Indian groups about Gun is the presentation of American Indians and the Indian Wars of the 1800′s. I even disagree with the use of ‘war’ to a degree. My tribe is one of the handful of tribes that stood up to the U.S. Government.(Custer’s Last Stand was my tribe’s big deal) For my family and tribe, we feel that when our ancestors went to battle, it wasn’t just a dispute of land, but a reaction to inhumane treatment and practices of genocide that took place. Calling the battles that took place ‘war’ is a gross understatement that protected the U.S. military from crimes against humanity back then, and is used now to call American Indians nothing more than sore losers and to just “get over it”.
I feel that Gun plays to old western film tropes of understating American History and playing on gross generalizations of tribes.
I think the best way to finish this is comparing this game to the film The Searchers: There are a lot of great parts in this that make for truly great gaming moments, but the overall innaccuracies really undercut those moments for me and I end up not liking the product.
I hope this sheds some light from and American Indian perspective on Gun.
Ugh, so many errors. Way to write this at 5 in the morning.
I, for one, honestly appreciate hearing your perspective. What happened in the 1800s was obviously terrible. I’d like to think that our society has learned from these mistakes.
While I’m excited to grab a copy of Gun to play along with Game Club (after finals, anyways), playing games like Gun (or Resident Evil 5) without discussion of their cultural impact and viewpoints on history can potentially be toxic to our society.
Or maybe I’m just being over-sensitive and paranoid. Nah, I stand by my statement, fuck it.
Spoilers!
The Indians become the good guys about half way through the game and you start helping them with their cause. It’s interesting because I really felt guilty when I changed sides because I had already killed so many of them. It’s nice to see a change of mission structure that goes from mindless slaughtering to protecting the Indian tribe from attacks and freeing the ones that became enslaved. There was a lot more story motivation helping them than the missions before that.
In my opinion, this game is not holding up well at all over time.
I originally played it on PS2 and am now going through it on PC. The visuals are ugly, and the aim [especially while on horseback] is a bitch.
The character animations are laughworthy.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good enough story, and i’ll keep playing, but it’s just not the same Gun i played 4 years ago.
I think this is an awesome choice of game for game-club. I had it on 360, but my Xbox broke so when I sent it off to get it fixed and got Godfather back instead. So I’m gunner get it from Steam, only £9.99! So person who was complaining about it go onto UK store and you can get it for a bit cheeper.
So far I’ve been enjoying the game more than I expected. The western setting resonates with me at a very deep level, because I have lived in Arizona my whole life, and me and my grandparents used to watch old westerns, such as The Good the Bad and The Ugly, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and other such films.
My one major complaint towards the game is its frantic pace. Many of the side missions last, at most, a minute long, which makes me think that the developers either ran out of time while working on the game or they made the game faster paced for, what they perceived, as the ADHD generation. I think it’s more of the former though (giving the developers the benefit of the doubt).
But my main problem with the game is its many little problems, such as the inconsistent voice acting, Kris Kristofferson (not his fault) sounds fucking terrible in the game, complete disregard for historical accuracy (although the setting is well crafted for the time with many supporting details, like the chinese workers that help build the bridge), etc, etc. All of these things really bring the game down and take you out of the experience.
Is it just me, or does GUN share a lot in common with Shadow of the Colossus? The environments are large and open ended and share the same kind of natural quality asthetic that SOTC does; Both games share similar rendering techniques (image-based-rendering for distant objects); Both games have a similar horse mechanic.
I found this quote humorous.
“A WHORE IS GETTING BEATEN AT THE ALHAMBRA, RESCUE THE WHORE!”
oh, I forgot to mention, has anyone learned how to power slide their horse? basically what you do is press the horse slide button and turn at the same time, it basically stops the horse from moving allowing you to turn much more easily.
Crap, I kept waiting for “Chapter” marks and ended up playing a bit past “Chapter 5″ well into Chapter 8.
I’m having a lot of fun so far.
I bought and played past the red hand gang in two hours.
is there any technical issues with the 360 version? like the 360 version of King Kong?
Just finished the GC version. Damn that’s short. Played a few hours last night and a couple this morning. Never beat a game in two sittings before (except bionic commando rearmed I suppose).
Loved it though – Limited in the right ways. I was expecting more of the freedom of gta but the smaller map and restricted paths really focussed the action and kept all the real-estate in use. Gta has so many cool places you never see in the story missions.
Yeah it goes by fast if you don’t do any of the side missions. There really is a lot of extra stuff to do that extends the games life quite a bit, and not in a bad way. I am genuinely enjoying the side quests.
I too was expecting discrete chapter markers and ended up getting to the cutoff point before I knew I was there. Ended up having to FAQ it just to make sure I was where I was supposed to be. As a western it’s great, just enough “fact” to make it plausible, but not enough to get in the way of a good story. All of the characters remind me of some famous western character, but not necessarily pulled from the same source material. It’s a healthy set of clichés that mesh nicely together.
It may be the predictability of westerns, but I knew from the go that “Honest” Tom was not nearly as honest as his name lead me to believe. First thought was: “I’m going to end up shooting this guy at some point.” I just figured it would be later on, and after he’d made off with a sizable sum of money. I still doubt those were ever his horses.
I do like the scarcity of money, it’s not heaped at you, and you have to make every dollar pay. What I don’t like is the apparent disposable status of horses when it comes to the Pony Express side-missions. I know the Pony Express rode their horses into the ground, but this is that and then jack someone else’s horse and do the same. I know Colt’s a nice enough guy given the plot, but I wasn’t signing up for Grand Theft Horse
They hang you for horse rustling, right?
I was gonna save this for the next Game Club post, but:
most of the characters you meet are based on their real life counterparts.
The mayor of Empire, Hoodoo Brown was the real life founder of the Dodge City Gang (kind of like a police force for hire), was the mayor of Las Vegas for a while in the 1880s, and his two right-hand men were JJ Webb and Dave Rudabaugh (his bodyguards in Empire).
Later on, you meet Chavez y Chavez, based on Jose Chavez y Chavez, member of Billy the Kid’s gang.
You also meet Clay Allison, the Clay Allison he’s based on served in the confederate army, and…was a member of the KKK. He did a LOT of vigilante killing, and his gravestone reads “he never killed a man who didn’t need killing.”
I would be surprised to find a Western that didn’t have some grounding in a historical event or make use of some of the key figures from the era. What makes it so endeering is that it’s one of those “golden ages” in American history just before and/or after it got ugly.
However, at this point I’m probably drifting into topics for the next segment too.
I want my fictional Western character’s grave to read, “He always rescued a whore who needed rescuing.”
Here lies David B. He never drank a whiskey that didn’t need drinkin’
I’ll drink to that.
third’d
I bought this yesterday on Steam and inadvertantly completed it. Oops.
I won’t spoil anything but I will make a couple points that irritated me:
The grammar in this game SUCKS. Read the subtitles, they mix up their/there/they’re constantly. As well as site/sight and your/you’re.
I read in a previous comment that someone liked the quickdraw in the tutorial, I’m glad you did because I never used it after that. Ever.
Other than that this is an enjoyable game. It’s a bit like GTA except that in GTA you can’t shoot your own car while you’re in it to blow it up.
On PC quickdraw might not be as good as it is on the console. Using a mouse is much faster targeting, I use it all the time.
That absolutely makes sense. Quickdraw is to make up for gimpish controls on the console version. Although come to think of it, when I played GUN on the Xbox way way way back, I don’t remember using it then, either. Probably just faulty memory.
I’m very early into the game (as in, not yet to the GameClub approved checkpoint), but I’m digging the quickdraw on 360, if only because I’m lazy. 1.) Tap the right bumper, 2.) flick the stick, 3.) squeeze trigger to quickly kill enemy and avoid loose shooting mechanic, and then repeat steps 2 and 3 as necessary until your meter runs out. You save a lot of whores that way.
Wow… I am in love with this game. It’s been a looonnnng time since a game’s kept me this interested and continually playing.
I didn’t notice that I’d gotten way past the Red Hand gang ’til I looked it up on a FAQ yesterday.
Wait is the red hand gang at the bar? or after?
Why didn’t you choose Red Dead Revolver? I don’t know if it’s a better game but it makes more sense cause of the sequel Rockstar announced…
[...] I am currently playing through Gun alongside the Rebel FM Game Club. [...]
I definitely see the seeds of Assassin’s Creed in here. Aside from the graphics (shockingly bad for the 360), I’m enjoying Gun’s side missions far more than AC’s.
After playing a few side missions, I immediately knew I would complete them all. So far, none of them last more than a few minutes which is perfect because the combat is not particularly deep and pretty flawed.
I’m glad the normal difficulty is quite easy because the gunplay is just not refined enough to make me want a harder experience.
In fact, it is just more western to play recklessly.
My only complaint so far is that its hard to gauge exactly how far I am into the game. I’m pretty sure I went well past the point that was the finishing point for gameclub. The mission I am at right now requires that I finish it but I may just go back to a previous save and do side missions. Oh, at 42% right now.
So I’ve listened to all the BackLog/GameClub segments from 1UPFM/Rebel and decided to play along for the first time cause I’ve always wanted to play Gun (I’ll play along with KOTOR too, that games is fantastic). My initial thoughts:
1) Kris Kristofferson is a major plus, and makes much too hasty of an exit. Here’s hoping for a flashback/resurrection.
2) It did take some time to get used to the shooting, cover & leaning gunplay and quickdraw.
3) I absolutely LOVE the cheating in Hold ‘Em, it’s hilarious and I was SO pleasantly surprised when I folded the first hand only to see that the 8 of Diamonds I’d been dealt stayed with me to the next hand and “Cheat” was added to “check” “raise” and “fold” on the list of options on the left of the screen. I’ve already won the first 2 poker tournaments available so far!
4) It was very difficult to stop playing, but I really wanna play along with the podcast!!!
Looking forward to the first Gun GameClub podcast!
fat penis,
Lore
Also, you can totally bluff the shit out of the poker players-if you play aggressively, you will probably never lose. Also remember the best starting hands! AA, AKs, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, bet like nuts. Suited connectors over 9 are good to feel out the table and mid pairs can take you a long way too.
THIS ENDS THE FAT PENUS POKER HOUR
Well i played through what I believe is where I was supposed to and am surprised, and somewhat saddened by how quickly that came about. I feel like I only played it for an hour or so. Anyway, I’m really enjoying it either way, can’t wait to play some more and hear the podcast.
So I’m going to make a confession, I’m getting fucking fed up with side quests leading me out to the middle of butt fucking nowhere and then leaving me without a horse to walk 10 minutes back to civilization. Terrible design flaw that should have been realized on any god damn play through the testers had.
I don’t know where you are in the game, but I have not been left without a horse anywhere other than in a town with one easily accessible. I have played quite a bit past the stopping point for the game club (i.e. I made it to empire and have done all the side quest that were available without progressing the story).
There’s a lot of pony express missions in particular, and it’s well past the checkpoint for this section so I apologize if I’m getting too far ahead. The problem is there aren’t enough horses scattered through the middle of the map, so if a mission ends out there you’re pretty much boned. A few of the pony express missions leave you out there.
This has probably been said but I must repeat it THE PC VERSION IS GARBAGE!!! Terrible controls, weird glitches (you can’t even walk right!), no widescreen support, and no Xbox360 controller auto-mapping really make it a terrible port. I wasted my money on it and don’t wish the same on anyone else.
Play KOTOR next, please. I really liked that game, and would enjoy some discussion about it.
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