Gun [PC]

Big Country Gun is an open design game. In other words, it's similar to Grand Theft Auto in that there is the ability to randomly pick a variety of missions in a giant landscape in any order you want. Gun is not as big as GTA, nor is it as packed with creatures or things to do. But I'll get into that in a second. Each time you complete a mission, Gun is obvious about telling you which mission will lead you to the next story-based chapter. It's hard to get lost. The story missions comprise multi-faceted parts, so you'll reach one goal, fulfill another, and then reach a climax, whereas the side missions are simple, straight-forward affairs that require less thinking or action.

While a handful of missions are intriguing and compelling -- the stagecoach and the fort missions, among others, made the strongest impressions on me -- you'll find that the main missions are either too easy or too short. You'll really want to fiddle with the four difficulty levels to keep the game compelling, much in the same way that you might have in the Tony Hawk games. These contrast sharply with the numerous, challenging, and trial-and-error boss fights. The boss fights are old style and hard, designed with relatively recognizable patterns, but built around the notion of out-and-out slugfests. You will spend a lot of bullets on an enemy, and he you. I'm a big fan of tough boss fights, and these trial-and-error fights will frustrate you, but there is always a pattern that makes it work out right.

The vast landscapes of Gun mean that Neversoft had had to fill up the game with lots of stuff to do. Like so many developers who create their first open-design game, Gun is open, big, but unfortunately vacant. When you create big games, you should fill it with stuff to do, things to collect, mini-games to play, and items that compel you to explore. There is a modicum of things to do, things to explore, and side jobs to do, but not nearly enough, and this emptiness will leave you wishing there was more. Sure, the Wild West was a big open place, but that doesn't mean a big empty videogame is fun! To be fair, Neversoft's efforts aren't in vain. You can ranch, mine for gold, hunt animals (including the mystic white buffalo and grey wolf), and hunt down wanted criminals, but GTA has spoiled us with huge worlds packed with far more stuff than this. Even without comparing to GTA, Gun feels empty.

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