CrimsonPaw
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- 5 (100%)
Alright, since I couldn't find reviews and I wanted to pick up a game (as stated in my other thread) I went down to Best Buy last night to get one. I ended up picking up Gun Showdown and have played for about an hour and a half, so here's my opinion:
Gameplay starts out somewhat slow. There's the usual "tutorial" to get aquainted with the controls which, by the way, are setup very much like Syphon Filter (move with analog, aim with face buttons or vice-versa and shoot with R). Once you learn how to use the weapons and move, you go into some firefights and eventually end up in town. One thing that I am very impressed with is how the controls, outside of moving and aiming, are implemented. To crouch, hold L, to jump tap L; you can cycle through weapons by tapping the left directional pad or you can hold the button to choose what type of weapon (rifle, shotgun, pistol, etc.). Tapping down will perform a context sensitive action (mount horse, pickup object, grab a person) and holding down will give you options to holster your weapon, call your horse, zoom in, etc.
The visuals of the game are, imo, very well done as well. Just for the record, I'm not a fan at ALL of western themes; movies, books, games, cereal boxes, it doesn't matter, it doesn't capture my interest. This game though, is very well done and easy to get into. The detail of the landscape is amazing, the towns are filled with stores that you can walk in and out of without loading, there's even effects that blur objects in the backgrounds that are set against the sun. It's all very impressive.
Missions themselves seem to vary from a simple "go kill this guy" to "cover the stagecoach through a huge indian valley". On average, it seems the missions are more multiparted than, let's say, what is given in Liberty City Stories. One particular mission that I thought was sweet had you protecting a bridge from oncoming indians. You'd go to one part, take out a flood of baddies, then progress all the way down to the bottom where you had to through TNT barrels into the water while those little bastards were flinging arrows at your back, then you had to fight them getting back up the bridge; the missions itself tood about 10 minutes at least to complete.
If I had to complain about something, it would be the usual ... load times. When you have to go talk to someone, load time; when you need to start a mission, load time; when you want to do some side work, load time. Granted, they're not Midnight Club Dub Edition load times, they're maybe more in line with "Welcome to Stanton Island" load times. What's nice though is that once in a mission, you very rarely see the "loading" screen come up (another reason it's nice to have the long missions). One other issue that I've seen, which I'm not sure if it's just my psp, is that sometimes the sound is off by about a half a second. Not that it hurts gameplay and it seemed to be at the beginning of the game during cut scenes (which are all in game and very impressive), but it did catch me as odd.
Anyway, that's my overview of the game thus far. All-in-all I would say it was a good purchase, $35 after GGC. I can see that there's decent production values and attention put into it, but again I'm early into it. Either way, this will get me through till VCS and after.
Gameplay starts out somewhat slow. There's the usual "tutorial" to get aquainted with the controls which, by the way, are setup very much like Syphon Filter (move with analog, aim with face buttons or vice-versa and shoot with R). Once you learn how to use the weapons and move, you go into some firefights and eventually end up in town. One thing that I am very impressed with is how the controls, outside of moving and aiming, are implemented. To crouch, hold L, to jump tap L; you can cycle through weapons by tapping the left directional pad or you can hold the button to choose what type of weapon (rifle, shotgun, pistol, etc.). Tapping down will perform a context sensitive action (mount horse, pickup object, grab a person) and holding down will give you options to holster your weapon, call your horse, zoom in, etc.
The visuals of the game are, imo, very well done as well. Just for the record, I'm not a fan at ALL of western themes; movies, books, games, cereal boxes, it doesn't matter, it doesn't capture my interest. This game though, is very well done and easy to get into. The detail of the landscape is amazing, the towns are filled with stores that you can walk in and out of without loading, there's even effects that blur objects in the backgrounds that are set against the sun. It's all very impressive.
Missions themselves seem to vary from a simple "go kill this guy" to "cover the stagecoach through a huge indian valley". On average, it seems the missions are more multiparted than, let's say, what is given in Liberty City Stories. One particular mission that I thought was sweet had you protecting a bridge from oncoming indians. You'd go to one part, take out a flood of baddies, then progress all the way down to the bottom where you had to through TNT barrels into the water while those little bastards were flinging arrows at your back, then you had to fight them getting back up the bridge; the missions itself tood about 10 minutes at least to complete.
If I had to complain about something, it would be the usual ... load times. When you have to go talk to someone, load time; when you need to start a mission, load time; when you want to do some side work, load time. Granted, they're not Midnight Club Dub Edition load times, they're maybe more in line with "Welcome to Stanton Island" load times. What's nice though is that once in a mission, you very rarely see the "loading" screen come up (another reason it's nice to have the long missions). One other issue that I've seen, which I'm not sure if it's just my psp, is that sometimes the sound is off by about a half a second. Not that it hurts gameplay and it seemed to be at the beginning of the game during cut scenes (which are all in game and very impressive), but it did catch me as odd.
Anyway, that's my overview of the game thus far. All-in-all I would say it was a good purchase, $35 after GGC. I can see that there's decent production values and attention put into it, but again I'm early into it. Either way, this will get me through till VCS and after.
