GAME REVIEWS: Gun

Activision (Xbox 360)
Game •••½ Graphics/Sound •••
Clichés are best served raw - and Gun isn't exactly shy about stealing from Western forefathers like Leone, Eastwood, and Peckinpah. The genre-defining sequences may be classic on DVD, but here they're like a pair of shiny new spurs when viewer becomes gunslinger. Train hijackings, bank heists, a single revolver shot to unravel a hangman's noose - this is the stuff of legend, relived through the eyes of one Colton White (voiced by Thomas Jane), a drifter searching for the secret to his musty past. True, there's a lack of resolution-busting visuals. But it's the next-gen grandeur that awes - such as being able to ride miles of horseback trails without waiting for the game to reload. And a nifty slow-motion technique for quick shooting insures that every kill is savored.

X