GUN is a very weird game. It is presented and marketed as if it's an Old West-styled GTA-type game: a sandbox world with lots to explore and do; but in reality, GUN is actually, essentially, a PS2/Gamecube/Xbox-era action-adventure game with a big hub world, like Ty 2 or Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy. You only have a few basic weapon types, and get straight upgrades to each slot over the course of the game; you do side missions to increase your stats; you get health upgrades for finishing main quests; you buy passive upgrades from shops; there are some boss fights; there's even a collectable in the form of minable gold deposits. If you take the game in this light, I think it's more enjoyable probably than if you go in expecting simply a poor man's RDR. The graphics are mediocre for the time the came out, and the game doesn't support widescreen natively (although there's a fan patch that fixes this). The music tends toward generic sweeping faux-John Williams orchestral stuff which mostly does not fit the game very well. The story is a generic, mediocre western, which feels like it is being told in fast forward: no plot events have any time to breathe, and there's almost no characterization. You soon realize how small the world is, and almost every level takes place within its confines; there's not much in the way of exploration to do: you'll know the world like the back of your hand a third of the way through the story. The side missions are mostly generic- races, escort missions, etc, with a frustrating poker tourney minigame that you have to beat six rounds of to get 100%. The game tracks your progress in percentages, but there's no reward for getting 100%, and you can get all the upgrades with about 80% completion I'd guess. Even getting 100%, the game probably didn't take me more than eight hours, but better that than it overstays its welcome. Overall, GUN is thoroughly mediocre, surprisingly goofy at times, and worth playing only if you NEED another western game.
I think This Is the Police 2 is maybe a great game, but also it is a very difficult game- not difficult in the sense of hard to complete, although it can be tricky, but in the sense of being difficult to digest as a video game. It's presented as kind of a seriocomic police sim, and it is this, as far as the gameplay goes, but there's a very heavy focus on the storytelling. I think it would be impossible to market the game otherwise, because the police sim stuff is the most immediately appealing aspect of the game, and constitutes most of the game's actual gameplay. What makes it hard to take in compared to other games is that it's very- and very deliberately- repellent and alienating. The protagonist, who you theoretically control in the gameplay of the game, is unlikeable, and gets less likeable over the course of the game in ways that are spoilers to discuss. He does things the player would never consider doing. The tone and mood of the game are grim, and get darker over the course of the game. Playing the game, and even after you finish it, you are made to feel anxious and uneasy, both by the story and by the high-stakes nature of the gameplay itself. This is not a game to play if you want to have fun playing at being a cop, or if you want a story which is satisfying in conventional, superficial ways. It is not, and can not be, for everyone; Metal Gear Solid 2 is the most notable example of a deliberately alienating, but brilliant, game which I can compare it to. This sequel is better than the original in every way: both the gameplay and the storytelling live up to the potential the original promised, but fell short of. TL;DR: DO NOT play this game if you want a fun wacky cop sim; DO play this game if you want something different and interesting, or if you liked the first game but wished it lived up to its potential.
Steel Rats is a polished, creative, and fresh-feeling game, which combines disparate elements (motorcycle racing, platforming, beatemup type combat, RPG-type skill advancement) to good effect. The setting, artstyle, and music and sound design are great and very polished. The story is serviceable. I want very much to love the game, but cannot quite endorse it wholeheartedly. The main problem I have with the game is that, as polished as the gameplay is, it was clearly designed to be played with a controller. It is... mostly playable with a keyboard. You can rebind the keys freely, but that doesn't quite solve the problem: the issue isn't an odd key layout, but rather that the game requires you to press the keys in odd combinations which are awkward and uncomfortable on a keyboard. I don't think this can really be ironed out with patches, or anything, either, because it's so complex and baked-in to the design. I managed to beat the game playing with a keyboard, but I felt like I wasn't getting everything out of the game that it had to offer, and some of the more complicated and involved platforming sections were frustrating. Another, minor issue is that, since there are no clearly delineated "lanes" and the player can move freely on the Z axis, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether you will run into a given enemy, or fall into a given pit, etc. If the devs ever make a sequel (the ending leaves the plot open for a followup), these issues can probably be solved. All that said, however, I do absolutely recommend this game if you're looking for something different: even if I was sometimes frustrated with it, I mostly enjoyed it, it felt fresh and new, and I'll look out for any future games from the developers.
