When you mention Neversoft the first and only thing that comes to mind is Tony Hawks, but now it seems Neversoft has a new baby. Their new beauty is of course GUN, the Western shooter set in 1890 where corruption is everywhere and the only thing you can trust is your gun. What exactly does GUN bring to the Xbox 360, and is it an improvement on the first generation game? Well, lets find out.

For those who haven’t played GUN, here’s the story thus far. The game is set in the great American West of 1890, where no-one is your friend - including the law. Shootouts come and go and each day you will find yourself in constant peril. You play Colton White and you are on a mission to find out who killed your father and wreak an unimaginable pain on ‘The Reaper’. The story itself does keep you gripped to the controller; you are always wanting to know why, when and who and because of that you will just go into a trance state waking up six days later to find you’ve completed the game and that the world has come to an end.

Graphics-wise, the game looks nice. It is better than the original game but only by a tiny margin, and if you do own a HDTV it is enhanced further but again its not really next-gen style. The cut scenes look very nice and they are easy to follow, while the characters look very good but the landscapes although vast and beautiful could and should look better on the 360. Horses and carts do look very realistic and the movement of the horse is very life-like, but things like fire, again could have been enhanced just to make it look a little better. However, the best part is looking down your gun barrel - the detail on your weapon is unreal; they must have spent more time on a single gun than on every landscape in the game because it really does look that good. In a way, this does make up for the bad graphics as you will find yourself looking down your gun barrel 99% of the time.

This game is also a gore fest so be warned. Right from the start you have to shoot wolves, slash Indians to bits and see a woman with an axe lodged in her skull, so this game is really not for the faint of heart. The blood is good in parts but over the top, especially when using the knife. Also the fact that you can blow someone’s head clean off with a shotgun is very unlikely to happen in real life, even if it does look sort of cool. Overall the graphics are nothing amazing. In parts, the game looks nice but it could have looked a lot nicer on the Xbox 360.

In terms of gameplay, this game is split in half. In one hand, you have a great quick-draw system, as well as the fun of shooting someone in the leg and watching them cry with agony while you walk behind them and put one right through their skull. I know its nothing new, but its always good to see a game like this pull it off so nicely. Then there’s the bad side of things, which on the whole the gameplay makes life far too easy. You have an auto aim which I’m sure they have made so the blind can play, because you can randomly take a shot and blow someone’s head off. I first noticed the problem at the very beginning of the game where you are given the challenge of shooting birds. Out of about 20 birds I must have missed 19 and yet they were all dead. At one point I aimed at a bird and managed to shoot another, which got me a little worried. The game is set in third person which does make for nice gaming, and you also have a knife for close combat which is actually very fun to use. The gameplay could have been vastly improved in some ways, as it is the worst aspect of the game. However, it is also contains some of the best aspects of the game (now let's see you get your head around that one!).

Onto audio, and this game is truly amazing. The sounds of the weapons are fiercely intense and make the game feel very authentic. It is not only the weapons that sound good, but practically everything, from the sound of your horse's hooves hitting the floor right through to the bellows of the rather ticked off Apaches. It all sounds so good and makes this game so much better to play. The cut scenes are also a treat; the voiceovers are fantastic, each voice matching the character perfectly without a single trace of dubbing which can often ruin other games. The game's soundtrack is also a treat to listen to; every song has been chosen perfectly and it really is nice to have good music to trot along to all alone, as it kind of cheers you up. Neversoft couldn’t have really done any better with the game's audio department.

However, the question is, what sort of lifespan does this game have? I would say on normal/hard difficulty modes you’ll get a good 10-12 hours, not including the sub-missions. Saying that, the sub-missions are rather pointless. You get a few upgraded stats but the missions have been dummed down to such an extent that if you ever fail one you may as well just crawl into a corner and cry. But the main storyline will keep you going and going, although once you have completed it you will find its very hard to pick up and replay old missions. You can upgrade weapons which will get you begging and scraping for money, but apart from that it is only the story that keeps this game alive.

Overall this is a fun game with a quick-draw to die for and a plot which has betrayal, love, greed and death all rolled into a quest for vengeance. There are loads of sub-missions and you can collect bigger and more powerful guns as the game goes on. Also, the Xbox 360 of course offers you GamerScore, which means you must do the side missions just to get those extra 20 or 30 points to brag to your mates about online.

This really is how a Western shooter is supposed to be made; the boffins at Neversoft have showed us that they can do more than just skateboarding games. This is an 18-rated game and rightly so, as you’ll see bucket loads of blood and even though the graphics are nothing to die for, this game is still a must-buy for any Xbox 360 owner.