“Another tick or two and you’d be puttin’ me to bed with a pick ‘n shovel.”

All these years later, it’s impossible to talk about Gun without mentioning Red Dead Redemption. They are both set at the turn of the twentieth century in western towns with old time themes, telling tales of revenge, full of vulgarity and gore. At the time, though, the only game in the Red Dead series was 2004’s Red Dead Revolver, which many people forget even exists. It was a good game in its own right, but not the undeniable success that its sequel delivered. Likewise, Call of Juarez was only in development, and so Gun was released into a market that did not have any other Western-themed open world games. And Gun mostly delivers. Its story is delightfully pulpy with a hint of real drama, the controls and combat system are serviceable if not great, and the side missions are flavorful. The voice cast is surprisingly star-studded, lending an aura of authenticity to the whole thing that ensures you will remember at least a few of the characters and the main story beats. Sure, one could complain, when comparing it with games that came after it, that it lacks depth or that there is a lack of certain gameplay elements,¹ but it largely delivers on what it sets out to be, and it was fun to play even fifteen years after its debut.

The story is set up nicely by a wonderfully over-the-top opening scene, in which you and your father Ned board a steamboat to sell the meat you just got during the tutorial hunting mission.² Or at least that’s the pretense; Ned seems to know about some important artifact aboard. But someone else, namely a murderous sadistic preacher, also knows about it. In a cutscene, the reverend hurls an axe into a woman’s head, which kicks off a player-controlled gunfight and sets the tone for the game’s irreverent yet tasteful take on the Western genre. You help your father defend the boat and the people aboard, but you are outnumbered. Just before the whole thing explodes, he tells you to go to Dodge City and find a prostitute named Jenny—oh, and that he is not your real father—then pushes you into the river. Though excessive, the scene sets things up nicely as your mission now involves not just avenging your father’s death, but also discovering who you really are. Our player-character certainly isn’t lacking motivation.

Throughout the years videogames have grown increasingly cinematic. Where before the story was simply window dressing for a game, some developers are so concerned with story and spectacle now that they forget to make a good game first. Gun finds a good balance. It’s story is fun and engaging and the presentation of it is stellar. The vulgarity and general tone reminded me quite a bit of HBO’s Deadwood, which was midway through its three season stint when Gun was released, while certain moments pay homage to classics of the Western genre like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and The Wild Bunch.

The gameplay of Gun is good, not great, but the game doesn’t last long enough for you to sour on it. I guess it’s a knock that you can count the hours it takes to finish the main story on two hands (that includes watching every cutscene), but on the plus side you never feel like you are forcing yourself through the gameplay portion only because you have become engrossed in the story. The horse riding, shotgunning, arrow flinging, dynamite chucking, cattle wrangling, and bounty hunting remain just fun enough to see you through the campaign. The side quests—timed horseback deliveries, poker games, defending the town from bands of raiders—offer little cash bonuses and stat increases that help you out as the main missions get tougher. The cash can be spent for weapon upgrades like faster reloaded times or extra damage, while new weapons, like a bow and dual wield revolvers are unlocked for completing the main story missions. One of the core mechanics of the game is quickdraw, which allows you to slow down time for a few seconds and jump between enemies with the flick of an analog stick, unloading an unlimited number of shots within the allotted time frame. It makes the game feel a little bit arcady at times, which again, I actually liked because it’s incredibly difficult to pull off “realistic” in a video game.

After an early mission, in which you defend a half-finished bridge from an Indian attack, I was excited to see what lay on the other side of the river once the bridge was completed. It evoked a feeling similar to unlocking an entirely new level in an old school platformer. I will admit to being a little bit disappointed that the world, once discovered, was largely static, with non-player characters each residing in a single location and everything being pretty neat and tidy. But my expectations were a little bit high, I think. The only seemingly non-scripted events are bandit raids that occur frequently as you travel between populated areas and a few hunting missions that rely on the prey spawning only periodically. Gun has a smattering of other low quality/previous-generation elements—repetitive landscape textures, clunky animations, a small map, etc.—that give it an antiquated feel. It was trying to push the envelope in a few areas and that meant less attention for others, but these shortcomings are not showstoppers. I actually liked that it didn’t try to do some of the more tediously realistic things that Red Dead Redemption did, leaving the player to fill in some of the gaps with their own imagination by extrapolating the cutscenes. I will also admit that it is a bit odd to see Gun on the resume of Neversoft, surrounded on either side by the Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero series.³

What it boils down to is that while the gameplay isn’t perfect, the story so chock full of period flavor and excessive theatrics that you’ll have no problem blasting your way through Gun to reach its conclusion. From the opening moments of the game when you are invited into its world by the gravelly voice of Kris Kristofferson, himself a veteran of Western cinema (starring in two of my favorites, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and Heaven’s Gate), the story of the Old West grabs you and sucks you in.⁴ The developers tweaked the actual running and gunning to a degree that it is immersive and flavorful enough that you can enjoy the game for more than just its cutscenes, and though it is short and has other flaws, Gun is a worthwhile experience for those who have exhausted the most obvious candidate for a modern Western-themed video game. It’s underwhelming in the quantity and variety of its content, but the quality of what is has to offer is pretty good.

1. Gun one-upped Red Dead Revolver by offering an open world, but it is not a role-playing game.

2. Actually, there is a really cool prologue of an expedition in the 1500s that starts off the whole thing, but the player doesn’t do anything during that section.

3. In another bizarre twist, Neversoft began assisting Infinity Ward with the development of Call of Duty games, and eventually merged with that company.

4. The voice cast is filled out by Thomas Jane, Lance Henriksen, Brad Dourif, and Ron Pearlman.