Gun First Look

Gun is the mysterious original title that has been cooking at Activision's Neversoft studio for the better part of two years. Anticipation has run high for the secretive project since the Tony Hawk developer revealed its existence last year. Many grew restless when Neversoft wound up offering just a teaser trailer and the revelation of its name at E3, which led fans to speculate and work themselves up into a froth of expectancy. Finally, in the wake of more information coming out on the new game, we got a look at Gun for ourselves at a recent press event, wherein Joel Jewett and other members of the Neversoft team led the assembled press through a look at the upcoming game.

Given all the anticipation and hype, we were naturally curious to see just what Neversoft was going to do for its first original game in years. After all, given the developer's pristine track record, the studio must be due for a stinker at any time, right? Though we just saw a demo of a work-in-progress version of the PS2 game, which offered us a sampling of the varied gameplay Neversoft is packing into the promising title, we're already intrigued by the team's ambitious work.

So just what is Gun? Put simply, it's a free-roaming third-person action game set in the old West. But while that may sound surprisingly conventional for a Neversoft game, the descriptor really doesn't do it justice. This conservative label is just a framework for the realization of some ideas that the Southern California-based developer has been kicking around for a while. Much like Tony Hawk's label of "skating game" didn't quite capture the grand scale of what that game was all about, Gun's "Wild West shooter" label doesn't quite do justice to its content, either.

At its core, Gun revolves around a lone wolf out to exact vengeance on those who killed his father. The narrative has grown in scope and texture as the team has done research on the post-Civil War era of the late 1800s. With the scars of the war still raw on the nation, the West was a primal place, ruled by passions for violence, sex, money, and liquor. This harsh backdrop serves as the stomping grounds for the main character, Colton Wright. The youth is a wild child given focus and direction by his mountain-man father, who taught him everything he knows. Of course, with violence such an intregral part of life in those days, you can expect a greater emphasis on shades of gray than simple black-and-white dilemmas.

Gun's opening offers a doozy of a twist to the story that upends everything you know about Colton and sends him off on his quest of revenge and self-discovery. While on a riverboat with his father, a brawl over a lady friend erupts into something even more deadly. Colton's father gives him a simple token and instructions to track down a woman named Jenny before he drops the big bomb: he's not actually Colton's father. But before the bewildered son can ask any questions, he's thrown overboard by his surrogate father just as the man is felled by bullets. Shortly afterward, you'll play as Colton as he wakes up downriver, with the coin, the name of the mysterious Jenny fresh on his mind, and the knowledge that the life he knows has ended. So what's a young man to do after such a traumatic series of events? Follow the only lead to his past--and get a vengeance, of course.

This premise dovetails nicely into Gun's gameplay, which draws liberally from both Neversoft's most recent Tony Hawk game and Rockstar's seminal Grand Theft Auto series. Your journey as Colton will send you throughout the West as you attempt to piece together what happened to your father and get your revenge on. There are two primary types of gameplay, each of which breaks down into a host of different chapters. Certain chapters will revolve around tasks you'll be doing to move the core story along. In the live demo, for example, Colton's search for Jenny leads him to a brothel, wherein some overly anxious customers nab her when it appears she's about to pass them over for Colton. When this happens, you'll have to rescue her in the face of all manner of opposition: a horde of wily gunslingers. Thankfully, you'll have your trusty six-shooter handy, which will help you deal with whatever stands between you and your goals. This portion of the demo showed off a bullet time and zoom feature that showcased how the characters will react according to where they're shot, much like in Resident Evil 4.

Ride 'em, Cowboy

The other gameplay types are activities you can engage in by interacting with various non-player characters, who appear to dole tasks out to you in much the same way that you would take on side quests in an RPG. We got a look at a quick montage of gameplay segments that showed off a sampling of the assorted activities you'll engage in. For instance, one sequence showed horseback riding and how you'll use it to travel the countryside. We also saw Colton allying himself with a band of Blackfoot warriors in order to take out a fort commanded by renegade cavalry soldiers. Besides the standard third-person adventuring, we were able to see Colton trying to take out turrets using guns and stationary turrets. This segment also showed off the many uses of dynamite.

In addition to the gameplay shown in the live demos, Jewett also mentioned you could engage in showdowns with renegades, fight off killer wolves, kill rustlers, protect prostitutes, battle on horseback, and even participate in bank holdups. The capper to the sequence was a sneak peek at the Xbox 360 version of the game, which showed off a hectic sequence of horseback combat, in which Colton and his allies thundered across the prairie and took down their mounted enemies in dramatic fashion.

The visuals in the Gun demos showcased the gritty art style and the impressive original 3D engine that has been crafted. The visuals we saw on the PlayStation 2 demo were still a little rough around the edges in the character department, though as far as the world goes, we were impressed to see the old West brought to virtual life. The environmental art has a very organic look and gets a lot of mileage out of a color palette that's heavy on the earth tones. The different locales we saw were nicely done and already had a decent population of local NPCs and critters going about their business.

Detail in the game is good, but still raw in a few spots, which is expected given the its early state. The same holds true of the character models, which looked good but were a little too boxy. The horses in the game looked good and moved well thanks to some flashy animation. On the technical side of things, Neversoft is attempting to ensure that Gun lives up to the seamless experience fans have come to expect from its games. The all-new 3D engine is robust and will be streaming in the world as you play. As it stands, the visuals in the work-in-progress game were well within our expectations for the level of quality we've come to expect from a Neversoft game. The teaser shown for the Xbox 360 version was quite brief, and although the game appeared to run reasonably well on the upcoming hardware, we're anxious to see what it will do on the 360 once Neversoft gets the final dev kits to work with.

The audio we heard placed a satisfying emphasis on the roar of the weapons. Though some of the shots we heard were likely to be enhanced a bit, the roars went a long way and really placed you in the experience. The ambient noise and NPC chatter is coming together well. We noted that the voice acting during the premission cutscenes was quite effective, and Neversoft obviously doesn't have "E for Everyone" in mind given some of the colorful language we heard. The music in the demo, while very early, had an epic feel to it, but didn't always make the obvious choices in its composition, which should have been to keep the Western-themed tunes sounding fresh.

Based on what we saw, Gun is shaping up to be a promising original game from Neversoft that's going in a somewhat unexpected direction. It seems like it will be a good mix of new ideas married with the developer's traditional strengths. Although we've seen Western games in this generation, as well as free roaming in an open world, we're very curious to see Neversoft's spin on both concepts. From what we've already seen, the game's gritty vision of that bygone era is extremely cool and will likely demand to be played. Our only nagging doubts revolve around the amount of variety in the things you'll have to do as you go through the game, and what ways Neversoft will differentiate the Xbox 360 version. Gun is slated to ship this fall for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Xbox 360 this fall. Look for more on the game in the coming months.