Welcome to the first episode of our Game Club series on Gun! In this episode we give our general impressions of the game so far, and give it some context as we talk about our experiences up to the saloon battle with the Red Hand Gang, and read some of your comments. For the next episode, be sure to play through the fall of Hoodoo! And remember, the main storyline in Gun is short! If you want to get your money’s worth, play through some side missions and tell us your thoughts.
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Sweet I can’t wait to listen to it, to bad I don’t have the game, maybe I’ll find it somewhere for PS2, but it’s pretty unlikely for where I live.
Anyway I still enjoy listening to Game Club.
I can’t wait to listen and then play this game some more. It’s been really hard keeping myself from getting ahead of the podcast.
Seriously guys can you please stop eating when you do the show? Is it really that difficult to stop for the hour it takes to record? It’s gross and distracting.
You must not listen to the Geekbox then, eh?
It’s not all bad. They could at least tell us what they’re eating, so my imagination doesn’t run wild….flavor crystals… but yea, sometimes distracting, but I can handle it.
I don’t even notice them eating… 0_o
As long as it’s not directly into the mic, or they’re eating Fritos, Tyler-Durden-style, whatever. When I’m hungry, I get irratable as shit (low blood sugar), so I’d rather have jovial, well-fed hosts than starving, snappy assholes.
If anyone is interested in checking out some character concept art for GUN. The artist’s name is Wes Burt. Here’s the link: http://tiny.cc/WdWln
Thanks for sharing that link. I know you probably won’t see that but I really enjoy concept art and that stuff was great.
So sound off guys! What system are you (the listeners) playing GUN on?
Am I gonna be the only one playing this on my PSP?
I snagged it for PS2, had some display issues but I’m not convinced it was entirely the games fault. Won;t know till my next PS2 game I guess.
I’m playing it on 360. I can’t believe people payed $60 for this when it came out. It’s fun enough, but they didn’t do much between the 360 version and last gen versions. But I do like the easy acheivements. Now all of my Live friends will see that I’m getting shit done.
I must say, buying this at $10 definitely adds to my enjoyment of this game. If I paid $60 I’d feel slightly ripped off.
I’m on 360, and I agree about $60 being too rich for this. I suppose with it dual launching on the Xbox and the 360, they didn’t have much of a choice, but it’s certainly expensive shovelware.
All the talk of the game being fairly short made me invest the $8.99 for a month of GameFly to get Gun instead of buying it. I’m glad I did because while the game is a lot of fun, even doing all the side missions (achievement whore here) I’m gonna have the game completed probably before the week is out.
PS2. I don’t have any display issues…I thought I would, but there’s a widescreen option, which is nice because I kind of have a sweet ass TV to play it on.
As far as the visuals go, speaking of (kind of), have you noticed that every male character looks down constantly, like they’re trying to look under the brim of their hat, even if they’re not wearing one? Kind of weird.
And also when you accept a mission from someone who’s not in the main story line, they move their hands like they’re telling you to grind 350 feet off that rail in front of the mall then do a wallpush off the hobo’s trash can.
I’m playing this on PSP too. The controls suck and the towns are more empty than in other versions, but I think there’s additional missions and side content. At least my PSP is getting used.
The game has been quite good so far. Especially the audio is great for a PSP game, it really sets the atmosphere of a western.
I’m playing it on GameCube (well on the Wii, but you know what I mean). And what’s this business about it costing $40? I got mine new from amazon for less than $10. And free shipping with amazon prime to boot. Y’all need to look harder for your cheap games.
playing the gamecube version on wii.
back when they were discussing the next game to play, i bought GUN, okami and RE4 (not in the running but i’d never played it). all three games, new, cost me $36.00 from amazon. the result has been gaming nirvana.
btw, anthony, GUN is 8 bucks new at amazon!
what are you looking at?!
RE4 is a great choice (especially the PS2 version). I just finished RE5, and even though I loved the co-op, and the graphics update was nice enough, it felt like RE4 Cliff Notes in Africa instead of Europe.
Okami is great too, but I never finished it. Be warned, it runs long. But if you like Zelda-style games, it will treat you well.
i’ve had it for pc for about a year but never played it up until now. i have a gang of games in a ripped game folder that i haven’t played.
Cool of you to read my comment, guys! I think knowing that the guys were real, or at least some of them, helps you get immersed in the game that much more. Also now I will picture Lou Diamond Phillips as Chavez in my mind.
Also, we referred to Hoodoo as the Vector in High School. Cuz we were nerds who liked to get stoned and talk about Lovecraft and maths. Example: Are you carrying the Vector? Is it time to engage the Vector? God damn…we were nerds.
Forgot to mention in my earlier rant that I am playing the Gamecube version. When I sold a bunch of GCN games back in 2006 when saving up for a Wii, GUN was one of the few I kept.
I am not sure but how far are we to go in the game? You guy need to make it more clear…
The endpoint is very clear this time. You need to get past Hoodoo. Trust me. it’s obvious this time.
Haven’t listened to it yet, so I don’t know if the joke was made, but at first glance I saw the title as “Gun Club.”
Holy cats, you can SELL scalps? I played through the ENTIRE game last week and did not know that — but I still scalped everyone I could find in hopes of an achievement. I thought it was just a way to be an inhumane jerk. Damn, I could have been rich.
I went though a 100% and got nothing out of it. I had a ton of money left over in the end with nothing to spend it on so didn’t really need the money for scalping. I scalped every chance I got, but it was pretty pointless. Sure they squirmed and screamed but the animation doesn’t actually take their scalp off. You do the animation, and ta da! They still have a full head, lame. I’ve heard a bunch of rumors of things they intended to do with it ranging from achievements to Indian Currency. My gamble is Indian Currency and they took it out to avoid a ripple amongst the tidal wave of anti-racist group hate mail. They should have just left it.
Here’s an interview with Neversoft’s president:
h t t p://w w w.gaming-age.com/cgi-bin/specials/special.pl?spec=gun_interview&pagenum=1
In it he says:
What is the purpose of being able to scalp people and why wasn’t it tracked in the stats?
JJ: Scalping did not seem completely congruous with Colton’s character, so we chose to leave it in the game as an “Easter Egg.”
I haven’t even bought the scalping knife this playthrough, and I don’t think I will. I totally agree with him, it does not seem like something Colton would do, even though he kills probably the equivalent of Trinidad AND Tobago in the course of the game.
I was surprised to hear 2 of you had the game crash, I’ve 100%’d it now and didn’t experience a crash the entire game, I’m playing it for PS2 which none of you are though.
My style of play for this game is to do everything possible before I have to beat a story mission to unlock more side quests. Anyways I think these quests were really memorable. A lot of shit goes down, and after killing all the Indians and the dudes from the movement I felt real guilt now that I was working with them. This game constantly amazes me at how fun the story missions are and how compelling it is to play every one of them.
I also can’t emphasize enough how surprised I am by the side quests, normally side quests bore the shit out of me and I only do them when I feel like it. However there is just enough exposition and diversity in the missions to make it worth it. I will say hunting was easily the most frustrating part of this game for me. I literally had to stop playing several times out of frustration on virtually all of the hunting missions. Now I understand why I couldn’t get myself to enjoy that free game The Hunter, I fucking hate hunting.
Overall I must say the pacing in Grand Theft Pony is superb. The elevation in story telling and plot intensity really moves up a level from the previous section of the game, and having played the third section I really felt like the game goes one level further, but I’ll leave that for next time.
See you all in 8 weeks or whenever you decide to record another game club. If you really decide to do one every 2 weeks I’m going to be pretty bummed out that it will take a month and a half to cover a 4 hour game. (I got 100% in around 12 hours and that includes 2 and a half hours of frustration on the final boss fight and the seemingly 30 hours or so hours it took me to hunt 5 or 6 damn animals.) You can do the math.
On the subject of whores and how someone said they heard characters talk about saving them. As I was doing some of the side mission one of them turned out to be saving a whore. I got a little laugh out of it since it was after I had listened to the podcast and just thought I’d mention it. Anyway, loving the game, and now back to it.
Well, I finished listening to the episode, but I still don’t have a copy of the game. GameFly seems to think that it’s more important to send whatever game is most immediately available instead of maybe waiting a day or two to give me the one at the top of my list. Although, Henry Hatsworth is pretty fun…
looking forward to putting this game back in my 360. looking forward in some ways, but not so much in others. having beaten gun previously on hard i’m going to be running through it this time on the hardest difficulty setting. thankfully i played through to 100% completion and have unlocked all the weapons, i’m hoping gun will let me play through again and keep all weaponry.
I haven’t played all the way through the stopping point this time, but I wanted to talk about some stuff I noticed when I played last night.
The story telling in the game is seriously on another level. Never mind the cutscenes, I’m talking about the in-game dialogue. A great example of this is when you bust out of the pokey. When you sneak up on the camps to steal the horses, if you’re not seen, you can hear the guys talking. One tells a scary campfire story, another sings a pretty dirty song about hooker incest. It really fleshes out the story, and makes it seem like I’m really there, in that world.
Also, blowing up an entire gang of marauders with TNT should not be that hilarious. I imagine them cleaning that mess up for YEARS
Speaking of explosives, if I have only one counterpoint so far (note: I haven’t played anything past Quick Killer), who the fuck leaves TNT on a bridge they JUST built, and took so long because of pissed off Native Americans, that were noted STEALING EXLPOSIVES. Shooting flaming arrows was ok, but I felt like I had definitely been “video-gam’d.”
I suppose you could justify it by saying people back then were a lot less intelligent. Either way I look forward to the campfire stories and hooker incest songs you speak of.
I totally noticed that as well. I was sneaking up on the horses when I began hearing the story, and I actually stopped to listen to the whole thing. Very cool part of the game.
Has anyone tried playing the PS2 version on PS3? I looked on the Playstation compatibility site and it said ‘no major problems’ (I have the 80GB MGS4 PS3), but I couldn’t get it to run. Keep refusing to load cutscenes, freezing, etc.
Also, I just got to Empire City and unlocked the first Hunter mission, so I went to the Hunter and started the mission to hunt the grey wolf, but I can’t figure out what to do after that. Is there some way to actually find/track the wolf, or do I just have to hope I run across it?
Just go on gamefaqs. It will tell you where to find all the targets. From what I remember of my first play through Gun a couple years ago, they wander a certain predetermined area and are not randomly spawned.
The Indian Hunter gives you a fairly vague hint about where the animal can be found. Iceveiled is correct, they do not randomly spawn. The Grey Wolf is usually found either outside of Dodge or in/near the ranch just southwest of Dodge.
Note that you cannot do any of the hunting missions until you have a bow and arrow, which if you’re playing at Game Club’s pace, you won’t have yet. You can shoot the animals up all you want but they won’t die unless you do it the right way.
You can infact shoot the animals with guns, I know because I did it. It took a lot of ammo to bring down the Grey Wolf, and when I did it said the pelt was ruined, so I think I got half the bounty for it.
I’m playing it on the ps3 with no problems.
I’m really surprised to hear you guys say that you like the voice acting so much. I thought with a few exceptions, the voice acting was some of the worst I’ve experienced in a while. ESPECIALLY the opening with Ned. He’s so deadpan I was double shocked to hear you talk about the voice behind him coming from an actual actor.
It’s possible that the negative experience at the beginning set me up to expect mediocrity throughout the game, so I’ll pay a little more attention to the voices and see if I’m just being too hard on it.
Ok, I’ve now completed the game 100%.
The voice acting is not as bad as I first thought. Some of the characters are quite good (especially Magruder). When I was done I did load up a new game just to re-go through the intro and my opinion there stands. Ned’s voice sounds cool, but it sounds like the guy didn’t give a shit.
I really like the opening sequence of Gun and how it establishes the old west frontier days theme. Hunting animals was a good tutorial for learning the shooting controls instead of just thrusting the player into an awkward scenario where you’re blasting native americans for no other reason than to introduce the basic controls.
It’s often hard to go back to last generation games and appreciate the graphics, but the visuals in Gun are quite nice, particularly the character models. They are both realistic and stylized at the same time and, thankfully, do not much resemble the ugly character models of the Tony Hawk series. The environments do a good job at depicting meadows, deserts, river beds, etc, but seem to lack detail and foliage. Clearly the hardware limitations of the system (PS2 in this case) are suspect.
The level of violence in the game is something I wasn’t expecting. Sure, I expected to see some blood splatters here and there, not heads being blasted apart accompanied by sickening splattering sounds. It seems like a lot of bandits and ‘injuns’ alike are going to meet their brutal blood-soaked demise.
Voice acting is above average in my opinion. I’ve heard much better and I’ve heard much worse. The soundtrack is highly enjoyable. It reminds me of the soundtrack for Dances with Wolves, which is set during the same era and is an excellent movie which I highly recommend.
Finally, completing side quests and earning stat upgrades is relatively painless. I’ve only done a handful of side quests so far but each one took under 5 minutes. They may be optional but I’d hate to try and progress throughout the game without the stat upgrades they provide.
A couple more items:
1. I have not experienced any hang ups or freezing on the PS2 version.
2. Anybody know how to play the in-game poker side quests? I’m not much of a card player and my used copy of Gun didn’t include instrutions.
I’ve been methodically bidding/raising low and just whittling down the other players. sometimes I’ll pull my secreted card. My 360 copy didn’t come with a manual either, and before I got the hang of the controls I would have killed for it.
WHOO POKER TIPS TIME!
First, remember the strongest opening hands. That is, if you get these cards in your hole, you can raise comfortably preflop: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, AKs, AQs (and some would argue 99).
A good tip for playing against the computer is to be agressive. Not reckless, but never be afraid to raise.
Basically, when they check, bet, when they bet, raise, when they raise, push all in.
THIS ENDS FAT PEANIS POKER LESSON 2
Does this game have a name? Is it texas hold ‘em? If it has a name I’d like to know so I can google it and get more clues.
I remember beating all the poker side quests back when the game first came out, but I think I just kinda BS’d my way through them with trial and error and eventually won them all. I’d like to use actual skill this time.
Yeah, it’s Texas Hold ‘Em. Pokerlistings. com has a lot of good strategy articles, the ones about tournament play and beginning tips are the most applicable. If you read those, you’ll decimate your opponents for sure.
I sort of suspected it was hold-em. maybe it’s the link to the modern “hot” poker/card game, maybe it’s just a faster poker. It would be more authentic with five-card stud, or I could just be bitter as that’s the type I learned
It’s also good to cycle around your “cheat” card whenever you get a chance, the computer players will frequently fold to your raises, or if you’re the Big Blind. I’d hide my face cards even if I needed them with the flop, cause you can always pull them back out before the final bet/check.
I have no idea what you just said
It doesn’t matter which two cards are in your hand and which is up your sleeve until all five community cards (the flop, turn and river) are face up. So I would always put my best card up my sleeve, even if I needed it to win the hand, in case all the other players fold, which they frequently do if you are raising aggressively, which you should be. If you don’t put the best card up your sleeve whenever possible, you can lose that good card to the dealer simply from your opponents folding their hands.
The in-game poker is pretty much just standard texas hold-em.
The basic premise is to use two (or one) of your cards in conjunction with 3 (or four) of the cards on the table to create the best 5 card combination. The graphic here makes it easy to see what combination of cards wins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_hands
The difference (at least in Dodge) is that from the second hand of a game onward you have a ‘cheat’ card. You can swap your cheat card in and out of your hand as you see fit.
I haven’t been paying enough attention to figure out how the game decides what your first cheat card is. I know it’s one of the two cards from your first hand, just not sure how the game decides which one. Once you have it, the cheat card stays the same throughout the whole game until you swap it out. You can swap out as much as you want, there seems to be no chance of being caught. It was helpful for me to swap out less desireable cheat cards for better ones just before folding on a hand I didn’t want to play.
Once you beat the Dodge poker quest and move on to Empire, the cheat card mechanic goes away and you’re playing straight Texas Hold-em.
After I made it to Empire I began noticing a very disturbing trend: Dodge and Empire are the bussiest sounding ghost towns ever. I still have to “take care” of Hoodoo, but I doubt many of these townsbeople I keep hearing and not seeing will come out of hiding.
There’s definitely a lot of nobody in these towns. My guess it’s because I killed most of them. I’m pretty sure the body count left by me was at least a few hundred.
yeah, I must have shot the bulk of them ouside town. I think I’m at ~150-200 kills. of which I think only one or two are innocents.
I’m loving the variety of different side missions, the world may be small but I like having less vast areas of nothingness that populates many open world games
Good show, I’m playing gun on 360 and I love the game. Pure cussedness.
One thing you guys might wanna mention on the next show is the poker minigame in the saloon and if any of you managed to beat that.
Good Show Guys!
This will be my second play through of Gun. I rented it for 360 when It came out and now I am playing it on PS2, just for some variety, and the fact I got it for 99p of ebay.
I had bad memories of this game for some reason, but I am totally enjoying myself this time around. The only complaint I have is that Kris Kristofferson(‘s character) dies so early on, I could listen to his voice all day….
Just finished the game and wow, what a great experience. I’m not really into Westerns, so I went into it expecting to play an hour or two and then dropping it; I ended up getting the 100% completion instead.
This game was shockingly good on almost every level. As someone said, the voice acting was of a quality that is rarely found in video games, and even if the basic plot was a bit cookie-cutter, the excellent writing and delivery made the story into something very unique. The little touches gave it a ton of character (I laughed out loud when Reed mockingly thanks Colton for opening the safe, and Colton throws the cross back in and slams the door), and the game’s willingness to break free from the absolute good/absolute evil mold is a welcome relief. You kill a ton of people (both rebels and indians) who you end up allied with, and the game not only doesn’t run from that, but has Colton acknowledge it head-on (the “you killed many indians at the bridge”/”I also saved many today” exchange). I’ve never played an open world game where the character in the story has actually lined up with the actions you take as a player so perfectly. And that brings up another point: The story never strays from being a simple revenge plot, which I really appreciated. It seems like there’s some unspoken agreement in video game design that revenge alone is never a good enough motivation; you always have to be saving the world or climbing up the underworld ladder at the same time. The fact that they keep things simple and personal is what made it so engrossing for me.
As for the gameplay, both the shooting and the weapon progression was far more fun than I expected. Playing it on a PC with a mouse made it laughably easy though. You can kill pretty much any swarm of enemies you run into without so much as taking a hit. The only parts of the game that posed any challenge whatsoever were the sections where you have to use whiskey/dynamite (I must have spent 10 minutes on that last cannon when taking the fort) and the final boss, which I thought was inadequately explained. I was on the point of loading GameFAQs up, but luckily decided against it and beat it on my next try. :]
Anyways, I had no problem with stability on the PC. The game even let me alt-tab in and out freely. What platform are you guys having issues on? I’ve run into a few bugs, but those were mostly funny rather than game-crashing (hooker standing on a table, staring off into space).
In any case, thank you for getting me to play this game guys. This is something I never would have touched on my own and I ended up loving the hell out of it. The worst part about this game is knowing that we’ll probably never see a sequel.
That boss fight took me awhile to figure out as well. Only it took me about 2 hours in attempts to kill him. My last attempt was about 2 min once I figured out some strategies.
Try it on hard or insane. It takes less than 4 shots to take you down on those difficulties.
The last boss is a real PITA though.
I really like not saving the world for once
I’m playing the PS2 version on my 60GB PS3 with no problems. Really loving it, but what’s with the wolf misrepresentation? Wolves don’t just randomly attack people, or ever attack people for that matter… Neversoft shouldn’t perpetuate such scurrilous myths about the graceful, majestic wolf.
Also, I agree it feels a little strange shooting all those Native Americans in the face but like the rest of the game it is all a little over the top for effect and I like to think all this animal/native/female exploitation is tongue-in-cheek and satirical.
I find it somewhat unsettling that you all are so appalled at Anthony’s choice to shoot the horse rather than the man, and it seems indicative of an overall problem in society at large.
Why should he be chastised for killing an animal rather than a fellow human being? I think he ought to be commended.
I find it comparable to a new station giving more credence to a deer that falls into a frozen lake or river and we send an expensive crew of specialists in an expensive helicopter to prevent the death of said deer, which would be the natural order of things. That deer was literally on thin ice. But people are murdered every day, and hardly warrant more than a few paragraphs of attention.
Anyways, Anthony, I got your back.
Plus, it’s a virtual horse. As much as this may support people who say gamers are detached from emotional experiences (which is not true), in this case, Anthony made a tactical decision. I’ve been shaken by shooting (a lot)Indians in the face thus far in the game, and I might feel a twinge of sadness shooting some dude’s horse later on, but that remorse will be quickly resolved by knowing it’s not real.
And in real life, I’d probably shoot the horse, too, depending on the situation. Think about it: you get a bigger bounty, and you have a ton of horse meat, fur and glue-making supplies to trade!
I just want to take the time to say that my kill count is 636:
597 people
24 horses being ridden too hard
15 horses being shot or otherwise killed
I respect any game that allows you to kick a horse to death.
Sorry this isn’t Gun related but I just got a score of 1600 on Consumo with 3 lives remaining and the game froze. Fuck you rockstar.
Hey Chuff
Totally unrelated to the Game Club, but…
There is a picture of you on Joystiq.com from Sony gamers day, don’t know if you’ve seen it aldready, but here it is:
http://www.joystiq.com/photos/seattle-gamers-day-09/1524419/
There was one more:
http://www.joystiq.com/photos/seattle-gamers-day-09/1524415/
Well, gameclub won out. I was planning on sitting this one out since I didn’t feel like dragging the 360 out, but I finally got my first RROD. Now that my 360 is dead I have every intention of playing through Gun with everyone.
And I’m almost glad, gun really is a fantastic game. It does some good story telling with equally good acting. Combat isn’t very technical but it’s still fun. Since I’ve played through gun before I’m going through on hard, and boy do you get shot down quickly.
I constantly feel myself grappling with the controls, but I think that’s just xbox controller sucking. Black and white buttons was a BAD idea. I constantly get reload, crouch, heal, and swap between side and main arm confused. The only buttons I’m quick with are shooting, moving, and quick draw. But that’s all I really need.
I keep hitting the Lt trigger accidentally for some reason – and with the Molotov cocktails being equipped I’ve managed to set numerous things (horses, buffalo, people) on fire that I’ve not meant to. However, a panicked, on fire horse is funny to watch – and usually they just get better so no guilt is involved either.
I love my little Hoodoo trophy sitting in the Empire town square. It gives me the warm and fuzzy like when I got good grades and my parents gave me $50…I keep saying to myself every time I see him “standing” there, “Yeah, I did that.” :^)
The first thing I did was shoot his head off…
Woah! That thought never crossed my mind in all of the times that I played it.
Between arriving in town and taking down Hoodoo, it was about 5 minutes for me. I did all the side-stuff I could in between, but it seemed like he turns on you VERY quickly. But the odd part about it is that the characters and story assume that he’s been playing you for a long period of time.
A poorly-paced section of the game.
Yeah, when the 2 deputies turn on you I also felt like I had missed a mission or two worth of story. I’d be curious if some content got cut there, cause it certainly seems like it…
It didn’t seem like that at all to me – to me it seemed like Hoodoo was kind of like the violent dictator of Empire, and that he was controlled by Reed and Magruder. When you come in and “clean up” the town, people act like you’re a damn rube because they know about Hoodoo when you don’t.
And if I send someone out with my two right hand men, no matter how fucked up of a mission it is, if they don’t come back and the guy who went with them said he killed them, I’d turn pretty quickly too.
Content was cut.
Just smoked Hoodoo so I’m now working on doing some side missions I’ve ignored before. I’ve completed all that I can do except for the Hunter missions. I can’t understand why I can’t kill Grey Wolf, I can’t tell if I’m a terrible shot or how close I have to be to take it out but I’m tried about 5 times unsuccessfully. And now I’m out of arrows, with no idea where to get more. Bummer.
the game prompts you through the Hunter missions:
it will tell you when you get close,
at which point you gotta git off yer horse, crouch, and move towards the beast.
equip your bow, get into the aim mode and creep closer.
you’ll get another prompt when you are in range,
and you gotta aim for the head.
not sure if this is persistent through all systems (i’m on GC),
but when i was trying to kill Grey it seemed that after i scared it off,
it would reappear by the bridge if i talked to the store guy in Dodge…
You can get more arrows next to the Indian Trader along the north-west corner of the map (west from the Indian Hunter along the road).
There are also more arrows in the run down cabin in the Badlands which is across from the Rancher and near where the Buffalo graze. It’s an infinite supply. Also You must aim for the head when you get close. Body shots won’t do. Another tip is to increase your arrow stats at the Indian trader. That way you won’t have to get quite as close as you would with the stock arrows.
Thanks for the help guys, I just finished up with all the hunting missions. I decided to start unleashing on them with the rifle to the head so I didn’t take any chances of them running away. Pelts were ruined, but it’s annoying waiting for them to reappear on the map.
Well that’s a shame. It only takes one shot with the arrow and once you’ve got the technique down for one the others are cake; but, whatever! As long as you had fun dude.
After completing a good portion of the side missions I have found the ranch hand missions to be my favorite thus far. They really capture the essence of the Old West for me, and are a nice break from the hunt and destroy mindset of most of the other side missions.
One particularly heinous side mission that sticks out in my mind is the one where you go a rescue the Chinese miners being held captive – in a mine full of dynamite. It took me close to 20 tries to beat this mission. I made some mistakes, but often a stray bullet from one of the bandits would ignite the charges about 15 seconds after I walked in the mine – or I’d take out one guy and one of the other bandits would stab the worker he was holding before I even had a chance to push quickdraw. To rub some salt in the wound, after I finished the mission I went back into the mine to grab the gold, and when I walked back out my horse was gone and I had to walk all the way back to town!
The main quest continues to grab me, and I found the scene where Jenny gets her throat cut very shocking. The axe to head on the riverboat was humorous in a way, poor Jenny with her gaping throat made my skin crawl.
Has anyone watched the trailer for ‘Red Dead Redemption?’ – it seems to have the same attitude as Gun (but with much better horse animations).
after hearing your gripes about no auto-saving, i write in a recent story. last night i was in the middle of a patapon 2 break session when my psp slipped out of my pocket and immedeatily cut off. I did not realize till later i lost about six hours of rythmic play time, all because of no auto save function. If only the game would at least present the option of saving after every mission, this probably would not have happened. Oh well.
Fat penis to all and to all a fat penis
As off this post I am still pre-Hoodoo endpoint for the next podcast. I’m so glad I’m playing this game with you guys as it’s quickly moving up on my shortlist of favorite games. This is mostly due to the setting and the story. I’m a person who actually plays games for the story/plot, just the same as any other entertainment medium I engage with. As someone mentioned earlier, I love this simple revenge plot without also being tasked with saving the world. It’s so engrossing to me that I am actually feeling a personal desire for revenge. What finally made me snap and turn into a vindictive machine of death was the Jenny death scene in Empire. I was caught completely off guard. The reason being that she was played up as a love interest as well as being used as a helpful companion character on several missions. I genuinely believed she would survive until the end and would wind up riding off into the sunset with Colton. Upon hearing her scream and Colton rushing upstairs to the rescue, I figured there would either:
1.) Be a continuation of the cutscene where she escaped from whoever would be holding her, with another buddy mission shootout mission ensuing from there
2.) Be another quickdraw hostage event where you would blow the captors head off and save the damsel in distress
3.) Be a cutscene where Colton was knocked out and the two would wake up tied to railroad tracks or something and make some epic escape.
So when Colton rushed to the rescue only to have that fucking preacher cut her throat so deep and abruptly (without any final words even) that she was turned into a human pez dispenser, I literally screamed at my TV with a white-hot rage brighter than a thousand suns, “No!! You goddamned bastards, I’m going to FUCKING KILL YOU!!!”
At that moment, I wanted to make the preacher, Hoodoo, and Magruder each suffer slow, painful, agonizing deaths. They took my fucking heroic exit into the sunset with my girl and they must all pay. I am coming for them. I will have my revenge.
This is an emotional connection I rarely attain with my entertainment choices. Kudos to the writing team for not going with the cliched ending that I was dreaming up in my head.
Just watched the Jenny scene again. Her last plead, “help,” after it’s already too late to do anything just makes the whole scene so much harder to take. I didn’t even catch that the first time when I was too busy screaming at my TV.
Took your advice in shooting animals in the face. Look what you made me do:
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I guess this is what naturally happens when you have an open world western game. You think of the most weirdest things you can ever do in the game, and see what happens. I have to say, this killing spree is much more satisfying than “the Hunter”.
I kept shooting until the game stops regenerating buffalo and horses. In the end, I guess there was nothing else to do but get off my horse and shoot it in the face:
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I have to say, this is probably the most thrilling gaming experience I had in Backlog / Game Club.
Got through the Hoodoo fight. I have done all the side quests available except the poker. I won two tournaments and the dealer vanished but later the icon for another tournament appeared in Hoodoos bar. I went there to play but the doors were closed. Now that Hoodoo is dead the doors are open but no ones inside. I even noticed that after killing Hoodoo is says there is another tournament available but its not anywhere to be found.
I’m surprised how much I like this game in general. The first hour or two were a bit dull, but once I got the hang of the quick draw I enjoyed it a lot more.
Mat
ps can you give a little more notice of what the next game is going to be or make it a 2 week break between games. I order mine from Goozex or gamefly and I didnt receive it until after the first podcast.
I had the same thing happen to me, between the time you kill Webb and Rudabaugh and the time you take down Hoodoo, if you even set foot in Empire, you’re attacked by 800 men. I figured that I’d take out Hoodoo and restore order to Empire before trying the poker, but…no luck. The poker mission seemed to disappear! Don’t these people know I got upgrades to buy?
I haven’t taken down Hoodoo yet, but I was hoping to get side missions in Empire out of the way before pissing him off.
I accidentally started the jail mission by walking into Hoodoo’s casino, hoping to play poker. Instead, I got to watch Jenny’s throat get slit.
Afterwards, I was able to return to Empire for Fed. Marshall, Pony Express and Wanted Poster Missions, but no poker. I, too, also started getting shot by a bunch of dudes, but seemed to hae come across a glitch (I’m playing on 360). I thought, “Fuck getting shot at; I want my upgrades!” and dashed to the shopkeeper. Hit Y and buy some stuff (or don’t, just browse) and when you exit, no one’s pissed. I suppose they decided to let me go on account of my stimulation of their town’s economy.
…or wonky programming.
I’m surprised that I’m loving the game otherwise. The story has great scope (not too grandoise, not too shallow, and NOT saving the world!), and the voice acting (and audio in general) is better than expected.
Oh, and uh, spoilers.
I have only been doing the main story so far (been busy playing the new Fallout 3 DLC) and i have to say once you get with the mechanics of the shooting it’s an incredibly fun game. Couple that with a great revenge story and you got yourself a great game, not sure how i missed it the first time round.
What has impressed me the most is the amount of investment that has gone into the audio side of this game. The soundtrack uses both a full orchestra AND a country band in its score. The quality of the compositions are comparable to any quality film soundtrack and, this being a game, there are some 40 odd tracks which is impressive. Also the cast is fantastic. They really spared no expense getting quality actors for this game and it shows. The scenes with Hoodoo Brown and the other ‘bad guys’ being by favourite scenes so far. The budget for the audio for this game must have been huge. I really hope they made their money back for this game! Also poor Jenny
I got gun used for $8 on gamecube
Thought I’d add to the “Glitch Stories” part of the discussion.
I was playing last night, and while riding my horse at a full gallop into Empire City I decided I wanted to stop at the Shop Keep.
Instead of pressing the stop button i hit jump –and jumped right into the barkeep. When i hit him my horse landed hip deep into the ground, started shaking and then we dropped through the ground. After falling through the ground we were suddenly falling in the sky.
Finally, my horse and i died upon hitting the ground…about ten feet away from the shop keep.
Just weird.
I’m really enjoying this game. I’m playing it on a 360 and so far it’s great. This game made me realize that just having widescreen and AA is more important that high res textures and high poly count. I think a lot of games look just nice even with low poly low texture resolution when they are 720p widescreen with nice AA.
I’m really enjoying the voice work, the scenery, and the setting. I have never played a western game before, and I’m totally into this setting. It’s making me excited for Red Dead Redemption. A game like this with high res textures and high poly will be amazing.
Good game club choice.
I have really been enjoying the game on PS2.
The one odd thing is the Poker mini-game. Amidst all these great, atmosphere establishing side tasks is this one card playing segment that completely breaks the mood. After being ambushed by twenty rebels, do I really want to sit down to a cheap card game? Not really.
I agree. Why the hell didn’t they make this 3d and in the environment, with dudes smoking cigars, drinking whiskey, with whores hanging on them, whores playing the nickelodeon, and guns sitting at the ready. That would have been awesome. instead we look at some ugly 2d graphic that looks like crap and removes you from the game.
I finished up the Hoodoo section on Friday/Saturday and I really enjoyed it. Its very easy to see how much the side missions fatten the game length up after getting out of Dodge City. I methodically did all of the side quests that were open, did the story mission, and rinsed and repeated. It was just awesome, and after getting the bow I especially enjoyed the hunting missions from the Indian. The bow quickly turned into my favorite weapon for what stealth I could accomplish.
The weapon’s feel solid, except for the Snipe which you get right before the final Hoodoo mission. The Snipe just feels really clunky as a Sniper rifle, and I especially don’t like the reticle. I think it could be great, but for the most part the AI is too quick to pick up on your location to get much use out of it. The mission where you get it was fun and over the top. The gatling gun? The cannon? Hell Yeah!
On a tangent, I really wish the bandit attacks yielded something. As badass as it is running through a canyon, have a pair of guys try to jump you, hitting quickfire, and popping two horses in the dome is awesome, I really wish it was worth something. A bit of cash? I mean I guess you get some scalps, but meh. Anyway, great choice and I looking forward to the podcast. Keep up the good work. Fat penor my friends…
Decided to join in rather than just listening. Unfortunately I couldn’t stop playing it and have now finished so I am going to enjoy the rest of the podcasts and may play through again. I really enjoying playing through. I think it’s because of how different it was to fantasy or scifi. I really enjoying the story and the voice acting. The pace of the game was good and I did a lot of side missions but not all, it was worth it to get your stats up and the better weapons.
Goddamn i was on the cut-scene right before the final draw with the guy and my game froze on 360. when i found out it didn’t auto save i was soo pissed. The first time i went through it i loved the game, the second time… not so much. i just have to say that it’s great to play a game in an environment you don’t see much, i love being a cowboy! im sure it’s definitely gonna be worth my $15.
I just finished the fight with Hoodoo and boy did they have some cheesy lines in there. Especially: “I’m Hoodoo Brown” gunshot, Hoodoo falls through the window. Colton “You were..”
One point however I had a weird glitch when Hoodoo was in the bar area and he was stuck at the stairwell facing the railings. I shot him 10 times with my rifle, 4 times with my shotgun and even threw some moltovs at him and his health meter didn’t budge. It was not until I moved down towards the blocked door did Hoodoo suddenly disappear and seem to teleport into space. The HUD showed him in the center of the room but he turned out to be hiding upstairs. Dirty rascal.
Did anyone see the cutscene near the time of the train ambush where Clay seemed to be stuck inside of his horse’s ass? I had to speak to his horses ass just to get to the next mission It was hilarious!
Lastly when you are defending the stage coach from the attacking indians earlier in the game, if you pause the game the chapter is referred to as “Whore Coach” or “Whore Wagon,” I forget which one. Better protect that pussy wagon so Hoodoo can get some!
Anyone knows what song is it that is played at intro? Is it from GUN perhaps?
All caught up in the game – shot up Hoodoo last night and have done every side quest I’ve encountered up to this point, aside from poker. I think I’m about 4 hours in with the side quests taking an equal amount of time as the main storyline quests.
If you aren’t doing the side quests you should be. They are quick, easy and fun with a lot of variety and provide you with much needed money for equipment upgrades as well as stat upgrades. Not to mention they provide you with a chance to explore the countryside and encounter gold mines for $10 a pop.
A couple things are starting to bug me slightly but not in a game breaking way. One is the way missions end anticlimactically by fading to a black screen and popping up some text showing your stat upgrades and cash reward for completing that quest. Couldn’t this be done without yanking the controls away from the player abruptly? It’s not so weird after, say, you herd some cows into a corral, but after you repel a dozen bandits, pulverize many more with a gatling gun, and finally turn 20 more into swiss cheese with a howitzer only to have the screen suddenly fade to black with no cinematic it just feels unfinished.
Finally there have been a few glitchy instances where I had a horse when the quest ended, and once the tally screen was finished and the game let me resume control of Colton, my horse was gone and I had to wander around looking for a new one, or else take 5 minutes slowly walking back to a town. Having a command to let Colton do one of those loud fingers in the mouth whistles to summon a horse would’ve been handy.
Finally, it would be nice if the upgrade points earned during missions could be allocated how the player sees fit. I understand that some quests only reward points that make sense (federal express side quests only reward horse upgrades for example), but it would be convenient to choose how to upgrade Colton.
I posted an article ( http://bitmob.com/~bit/index.php/mobfeed/Why-Must-You-Be-So-Difficult-.html ) inspired by my recent playthrough of gun, about how bullshit the game’s hard mode is.
Here’s a snippet: “The idea of picking a hard difficulty isn’t for a sadistic challenge, but for an experience that doesn’t leave me bored due to being well versed in similar games. After an hour of playing Gun, I threw my controller down and screamed into my pillow. Hard isn’t hard in the world of Gun, hard is just damn retarded. The only difference is how much damage you take (fair game) and how accurate the enemy is-the enemy is so accurate in hard mode that they will continually snipe you with a pistol from a mountain away. It isn’t a challenge; it’s a study on masochism, and, above all, an example of difficulty that breaks a good game.”
Am I alone in feeling this way?
I played through the game on hard this time and I felt the same way at first. After a few tries though I realized that there was just no room for error and that their was a very specific solution to each quest. After realizing that, most challenges only took a trial or two. Some were very frustrating though especially the last story mission before you fight Magruder. I’ll just say right here that I hate controlling the cannons in this game!
Man, I forgot how awesome this game was!
I searched around the whole of my city for a copy and finally found one. I’m just about to shove something long, hard and metal up Hoodoo’s a** but after I finish some side quests first.
Hehe, no using the Spoilers podcast name, it is already taken
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