Red Gun Review
PROS
- Unique setting; English gunslinger in the Old West.
- Relatively intuitive control scheme.
- Alternate game modes and difficulties to try.
CONS
- Poor gameplay balance; awkward back-and-forth pot-shots.
- Stiff voice-acting.
- Enemies in 'cover' are immune despite still being visible.
VERDICT
Red Gun is a hard game to recommend as it never really elevates beyond its awkward rail-shooter style of popping in and out of cover.
- Full Review
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Thanks to some power-house titles in the Arcades, 'rail shooters' have split in to several different paths, varying in style from something as simple as being able to kill enemies in one hit, to requiring skill shots or utilizing a cover system to survive punishing attacks. Red Gun by Damatha Studios takes an odd approach by pairing bullet-soaking enemies that constantly hide with limited ammunition and a sluggish cover system that can be hard to master.
It's a deadly combo that makes Red Gun a difficult game to enjoy from the outset as players waste bullets shooting in to empty space when tapping the screen. A poor hit-detection system makes it impossible to hit enemies that are 'in cover', even despite being able to see and aim at them clearly. Once you're aware of these issues it's possible to compensate by constantly popping up and down, spamming shots almost blindly and praying for a lucky six-hit combo to earn the dual-pistol power-up.
The situation borders on hilarity as you constantly swipe and tap with little regard to what's going on while enemies pop in and out of cover with little regard to what's going on. Eventually it starts to feel like some bizarre, elaborate 'whack-a-mole', but instead of tickets you're rewarded with 'cash' that acts as the game's high-score system. Pairing all of this with an unprofessional voice actor; stiff and unconvincing animations; and an extremely short campaign places the final nails in the coffin. Additional game modes are available, but feel just as equally marred by the odd pop-up, bullet-soaking enemies.
Red Gun is an admirable attempt to bring the Old West to iOS devices and if the gameplay was solid it'd be easy to forgive the other less polished features. Sadly this isn't the case and as such it's very hard to recommend Red Gun at this time.
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