There was a reason they called it the Wild West - folks along the frontier were battling against the elements as well as other settlers, bandits and the natives whose land they were taking. Scores were settled by the gun as often as the law, and in some of the towns that sprung up along the trails, every vice imaginable found a way to express itself. Such is the backdrop of GUN Showdown, the PSP version of last year's controversial old west themed shooter, named simply GUN. More than just a port, this version encompasses the entire console version and adds a few extra non-critical missions, as well as multiplayer modes and several Quickplay mini-games, resulting in a better overall experience than the original.

This game is clearly aimed at adults, which is good, because kids are having a hard enough time sorting out what their parents tell them about frontier history from what they are taught in school. GUN Showdown doesn't aim to be historically accurate, but it is close enough that several groups have raised protests regarding their portrayal in the game (and no, the prostitutes in Dodge weren't one of them!) Despite the historical setting, there is a lot to get feathers ruffled - over-the-top violence and gore, a rather unflattering portrayal of Native Americans for much of the game, prostitution and a health replenishment system based on chugging whiskey from a bottle!

Gun is the story of Colton White, who finds out as a young adult that everything he thought he knew about himself is untrue - the man he spends all his time with is not actually his father, a revelation he receives right before being pushed from a burning boat to begin his journey alone. The journey takes him to Dodge City and beyond, providing an interesting array of characters and missions before coming to a conclusion. The game is still fairly short, perhaps spanning a few hours, but the added missions make things feel less rushed.

The game plays somewhat like a third person action game and somewhat like a first person shooter. Generally this is a good thing, but there will be times when you're in 'action mode' and you wish it controlled more like a true shooter, and vice versa. You can get around the world on foot or on horseback - and you can actually shoot while on horseback! Missions have a distinct beginning and end, but are picked up as part of normal progress through the game. The missions themselves are often very much like arcade games - kill 20 wolves to continue, at which point wolves start spawning and you have to kill them all, then there are no more and you continue. You can also search out side missions, like Pony Express deliveries, and finding these is a matter of simply talking to the right person. The game gives you a fair amount of freedom in towns to seek side missions and explore, but it is not by any means a 'sandbox' experience. This is just as well, since outside of the mission areas there isn't a whole lot to see - trotting your horse around the frontier can be fun for a while, but pretty soon you'll tire of it and return to the game.

Aside from the story mode, the single player experience has been extended to include six unlockable quickplay modes - you need to beat the first to unlock the second and so on. These include the Quail hunt from the tutorial, as well as Texas Hold 'Em poker and fortress defense among others. These are a good bit of fun and a nice diversion from the main game.

Gun was a very good looking game on the consoles and the translation to the PSP has been handled very nicely. The characters are very detailed and all of the animations are fluid - everyone's lips move and actually match the dialogue! While the environments of the Old West are perhaps not the most varied, they do match reality pretty well and the developers made sure that the characters and items were distinct and visible against the backgrounds at all times. The cut scenes look and sound equally nice, providing excellent transitions and storytelling elements. The voice acting and overall sound production is superb, providing immersing characterizations and engaging dialogue, as well as pulling you into the environment and each of the missions.

What usually happens when a game is ported from a console to the PSP? That's right - long load times! How about when the graphics and cut scenes look great in a game that has some complexity? Right again - long load times! Guess what - GUN Showdown does not have long load times! I could hardly believe it - I'd braced myself for a minute or so to load things, but each area typically loaded in fifteen seconds, and there was considerable play before the next area load.

The other typical pitfall of PSP games is the controls, and this is perhaps the single weakest element of GUN Showdown. You will learn this during one of the training sessions - not a specific one, but at some point you will think 'the controls are bad'. How early you have that thought will determine your overall frustration with the controls over the course of the game. The controls work more or less like an FPS on the PSP - you move with the analog stick and aim with the face buttons, with firing the weapon mapped to the R shoulder button and special actions mapped to the directional pad. If course this can be changed, as can the camera turn sensitivity. I found that the turn sensitivity was inadequate for quick turns even at highest sensitivity, and that I was often forced to use duck-and-cover tactics to compensate for the slowness of the camera. The controls while on horseback are twitchy and tend to overcompensate for small movements, making precise motion difficult. The game features a Quickdraw mode that helps considerably - when this bullet time style feature is active, the world slows down so you can act more quickly and your aiming skills improve. This is a fun gameplay mechanic, as well as something that will save your hide more than a couple of times during the course of the game!

Once you've completed the main story mode, it's time to team up with friends for some multiplayer action. The original game was single player only, but GUN Showdown adds several local wireless play options such as poker, standard deathmatch, a 'get the most treasure' mode and a king of the hill mode, where you try to stay alive the longest while holding a special coin. These are nice additions, but the lack of infrastructure mode is painfully obvious when you ask yourself why anyone within wireless range would play cards on the PSP when they could just break out the deck and get the full benefit of social gaming?

After nearly two years of hoping for great things from PSP games and usually being disappointed, for many gamers the acceptance threshold for console ports has dropped to "won't be too much worse, just a stripped down version of the console original". In this regard, GUN Showdown is a huge success - it is better than the original in terms of content and extras, the controls and graphics are better than many other PSP games and the overall experience is great fun. The limitations of the original are still there - somewhat difficult controls, thin missions, an empty world and a relatively short game - and the added control frustration typical of PSP games exacerbates these. Also, the game doesn't hold up well in comparison to other pure shooters such as Syphon Filter, giving it even more niche appeal. Still, if you are looking to be saddled up and thrown into the midst of trouble in the Wild West, you will find that a solid experience awaits you with GUN Showdown.

Reviewed by Michael Anderson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).