(12 old generation games left, though Gun was also available for the 360.) Basically Grand Theft Auto in the Old West (”Grand Theft Horse” if you will.) The story of revenge, betrayal, and surprise parentage was pretty good as far as a story for a sand box style video game goes. I enjoyed the visual depiction of the wide open expanses (scaled down to be traversable in video game time) but the town areas felt empty and completely un-populated in way that just seemed lazy from a game design/system resources. Towns are simply places where you can go to accept new mission or hang around outside 3D models of buildings you can’t enter with occasional people you can’t actually interact with. My brother pointed out the somewhat disappointing game mechanic that all the horses are the same and there is no horse that is really “yours” and is faster, better, etc. Every time you start a mission or such you just grab (or “jack”) the nearest horse and away you go.

When Gun first came out there was controversy over the depiction of Native Americans, effectively the issue is that there are several levels where you just kill countless droves of them because people who design games feel that killing many people is the necessary appropriate action one must take before you can accomplish tasks such as crossing a bridge or going to the next town. Using this same kind of logic they later become your friends after you kill droves of ex-Confederate soldiers. (Remember only crazy ex-Confederate soldiers led by an evil villain were disrespectful to native peoples.) Basically the same kind of general disregard for issues of race/culture/class/gender you’d find in most video games. I played this the same week the new and controversial trailer for Resident Evil 5 came out so Gun felt almost quaint in comparison to that…

In short as far as game play goes Gun was generally fun and sufficiently engaging enough that I played the story mode all the way through, but I’m left wanting a bit more; perhaps I need to go watch some more Deadwood or play a game of Deadlands (Jason?).