GUN-Play Tips

The western is alive and well for the original Xbox® and Xbox 360™ in the form of Activision's GUN™, a thrilling third-person action experience rife with women, whisky, and gunplay. If you want to survive, though, you need to develop some skills and strategy in a hurry. Luckily, you need not develop them all on your own. We've braved the Wild West of GUN and lived to celebrate another day, scrounging up a few tips to boot.

Villains always flee.

Red Means Dead
Aiming in GUN doesn't require the pixel-perfect precision of a first-person shooter. You're already a pistol-toting badass with quick-draw abilities when you start, and the game knows it, so don't try to get too cute. When you see the targeting reticule go red, you know it's time to fan the hammer.

Aim with a Purpose
When using the Quickdraw Mode, make sure you don't dally around with careless aiming. Make your shots count by shooting the gun right out of the enemy's hand, or going for the quick solution by braining them with a headshot.

Melee with Abandon
It's easy to get overrun in GUN, and even easier to loose your cool and start blasting in all manner of direction without success. Instead, make sure you use your melee attack (press X) to slice and dice your way out of a corner, so you can regroup, slake your health with a shot of whisky, and bust out the street howitzer for another round of buckshot glory.

Fan that hammer.

Sparkle Means Money
Hidden throughout the game are gold piles, where you can mine gold (you need to buy the pickaxe in the first town). Keep an eye out for these, and make sure you head down alternate paths in your travels … there's a lot of ground to cover, but little of it is wasted. Exploration is rewarded.

Compass Awareness
The heat of battle can test a man's wits, but you'll find yourself a lot more in control if you glance at the compass habitually during battle. This highlights enemy locations with little red dots, giving you an opportunity to get the jump on would-be ambushers before they can do any damage.

Trample … A Lot
It ain't easy to aim on horseback, nor should it be, but it's easy to whip that pony into a frenzied gallop to trample enemies on foot and horse alike. If you've got baddies swarming nearby, swing your horse around, gallop at them when they're lined up, and hold X as you approach for a quick, easy strike of the bowling variety. It's a nice ammo-saving technique as well.

Wanted All the Time
Side quests, like the Wanted Posters or Pony Express missions, may seem extraneous, but they're a heckuva lot of fun and quite useful as well. Not only do you make a little extra coin, but you earn extra experience, so you can be a steadier hand with the iron and a more expert horseman when it counts in the real missions.

Riding the prairie.

Bulletproof Chest
Nobody said a nearby enemy has to die in an instant. Instead, melee attack them with X, and then press Y to grab them. They can then be used as the proverbial "meat shield" for incoming gunfire, a handy tool indeed. They do slow you down, though, so feel free to part ways by pressing X to do away with them when their use has ended.

Shoot and Subdue
You often get greater rewards when you bring back a wanted man alive, though at times this can be tricky. In an effort to alleviate much bullet soaking on your part, enter Quickdraw Mode when encountering a wanted man so you can shoot the gun from their hand. Once that's done, you should be able to subdue them with ease.

Quickdraw Hostages
Like every hero, you have a fair amount of rescuing to do, and usually a held (literally) hostage to free. When you encounter a baddie clutching at the fair (relatively speaking) damsel, use the Quickdraw Mode to line up an expert headshot so you don't nick the hostage.

Note: All screenshots are from the Xbox 360 version of the game.

Article by Alex McLain