Gun Showdown
- October 05, 2006 00:00 AM PST
GUN Showdown smokes the PSP this month, but this western shooter may be too much for Sony's handheld to handle.
Shipping in late October, GUN Showdown is looking to break the stereotype that console ports just don't add up on the PSP. With the exception of a couple, namely Burnout and GTA, most franchises that make the transition to the PSP become watered down versions of their console counterparts.
Perhaps Activision has seen the errors of others' ways and is ready to drop something unique onto the PlayStation portable in the form of the GUN franchise. Unfortunately, GUN Showdown is looking a lot like the console version of GUN. And by "a lot", we mean it's pretty much the same game.
To its credit, Showdown offers five new story missions that were meant to be included in the original game, but were yanked last minute to trim the game down a slice. Activision swung by to let us take a crack at one of the new missions, Bank Job. In this heist situation, Colton and his safe cracker blast their way into the Empire City Bank, and Colton must fend off any gunners that get inside while his wingman cracks the safe. When the lock is finally broken, Colton must escort the loot to the horse and buggy, fighting off pursuers on the way.
Once the cash is loaded up and the goods are on their way, more trouble is found ahead. Roadblocks and baddies are intent on stopping the robbery dead in its tracks. Of course, it's Colton to the rescue, and you'll need to set off some TNT to blow the path clear. It's a pretty tough mission, though it's broken up into a few parts, so if you die, Colton will restart at the last checkpoint -- a worthwhile new feature.
We also got to play an original GUN mission called Ambush the Train. Here, through a series of shooting and traveling sequences on horseback, Colton must perfectly place a pile of TNT on the tracks to sabotage a train delivery. It's a timed mission that requires some quick work, but it plays exactly like it did in the original game.
And we jumped right into some multiplayer, too. We played a six-player game against five bots, whose difficulty ranged from easy to bringers-of-instant-death. Thankfully there are three difficulty levels for fine adjustment. In multiplayer, you have your standard game options like deathmatch and capture the flag (Golden Cross) playable in eight multiplayer maps.
The last feature we saw is called Quick Play, a mode that lets you jump right into one of several mini games, including Bear Hunt. In this game, the object is simple. Plunk as many attacking bears as you can until you are made into a big pile of honey.
The game looks pretty good on the PSP, though there were some obvious graphical sacrifices made to fit the handheld version. The controls are better than the last time we saw the game, but the PSP's single-analog scheme still makes aiming rather shoddy.
