Gun tells the story of Colton White, a gunslinger who gets caught up in the middle of a conflict revolving around a coveted relic. The game has a mission-based narrative centered around various Western locations, with a straightforward narrative as well as various side quests placed within an open world design. Many of Gun's presentation elements, including its storyline, soundtrack, and voice acting including a top-notch performance from Kris Kristofferson, are among the game's strongest elements. Showdown is not a spinoff title, but rather a full port of that game, with some extra material added for the platform. In addition to the full original Gun single-player campaign, five new story missions have been added, complete with voice acting, and the game has a new multiplayer mode and set of single-player mini-games. The game looks quite nice on the PSP hardware, particularly with the system's wide screen. The game obviously had to be scaled down from its PS2 counterpart, but it feels very complete visually. Textures are varied and well done, character models are detailed, draw distances are good, and, importantly, the framerate holds up.

Gun Showdown obviously had to be modified a bit control-wise for the PSP platform, given the system's fewer buttons and analog sticks as compared to home console controllers. Movement and aiming are similar to the scheme used in Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror for PSP; the analog stick strafes and moves forward and backward, while the four face buttons act as a d-pad for turning and aiming. The right trigger fires, the left ducks, and the d-pad is used as a somewhat context-sensitive cluster of action buttons; right takes a swig of Colton's healing flask, down reloads or whistles for Colton's horse, left switches weapons, and up activates the Quick Draw mode. Quick Draw is Gun's version of bullet time, slowing the world (except for Colton himself) to a crawl and allowing quick targeting of enemies by flicking the analog stick in their direction. The horse call is new for the PSP version; apparently, in the original game, players didn't feel responsible enough for their horse, so the call was added to make it easier to keep tabs on the animal's location.

First, I tried out The Bank Job, a new mission added for Showdown. The Bank Job has Colton assisting a bandit named Soapy in sticking up a bank and raiding its vault downstairs. Since it takes Soapy a while to get through the vault door, the player must stand guard and fend off wave upon wave of enemies who pour down the stairs and start shooting things up. When I started out, I ended up restarting from the same checkpoint several times after failing to take out the bad guys (good guys?) efficiently enough before they got to Soapy, in large part due to being unable to use the face buttons as an analog stick with the necessary precision. Fortunately, it was only a matter of minutes before it became more second nature, and the control scheme actually works quite well given the hardware limitations. There seems to be a slight bit of auto-aim in there, which helps when it comes to pulling off headshots. After Soapy busts into the vault and grabs the loot, Colton accompanies him back outside and protects him as he carries bag after bag of cash between the bank and a stagecoach waiting outside. This part of the mission is structured similarly to the first, with waves of enemies coming after Soapy, but it plays somewhat differently due to the enemies coming from all directions thanks to the more open outdoor environment. Finally, once the coach has been all loaded up, Colton must ride alongside it and protect it from a series of ambush encounters before finally making a safe escape.

Gun Showdown has several new multiplayer modes playable via local wireless: straight deathmatch, the CTF-like Capture the Golden Cross, and hold 'em poker game. Each supports up to six players. I tried out some deathmatch, which was, well, deathmatch. You try and shoot guys, they try and shoot you. It controls just like the single-player game, though bots are more active and mobile than the scripted NPCs in the single-player game. I managed to win each of the three rounds I played, though since I wasn't actually going up against any real humans I'm not sure I can make any particularly lofty claims. There are options for bot difficulty level and game time limit from 5 minutes to 20 minutes, and players can choose between eight different maps.

Finally, there is a series of bite-sized single-player Quick Play games. Activision describes these as being intended for when players are on the go or short on time, and just want to quickly jump into a game and shoot some enemies or blow stuff up for a minutes or two. These games load very quickly compared to most PSP games, allowing players to jump into a game almost immediately. Gun Showdown's minigames are Bear Hunt, which pits the player against a neverending stream of increasingly tough bears; Quail Hunt, which is basically Duck Hunt; Hold the Fort, which gives players a minigun and has them mow down waves of attackers; Supress the Outlaws, which has players defending a town by taking out enemies for one point or dragging them back to the sheriff's office for ten; Fire Fight, in which the goal is to smash windows and burn down structures with Molotov cocktails; and Hollister's Dynamite, a timed mission in which the player sets as many sticks of dynamite as possible. I tried out the straightforward Bear Hunt, which starts off with just a few small brown bears, which soon start to increase in number before switching over to the tougher black bears. These minigames are unlikely to be selling any copies of the game on their own, but they add some value and are appropriate for the portable setting.

Gun Showdown appears to be a faithful port of last year's Gun. Most players who already own Gun on another platform are unlikely to find the additions compelling enough to buy the game again on PSP, unless they are story completists who are curious to find out what happens in the new single-player content, but gamers who own a PSP, haven't played the original game, and are in the mood for a Western adventure (oddly rare in video games) may want to check out Gun Showdown for some gunslinging action on the go.

Neversoft Entertainment and Rebellion's GUN Showdown is set to ship October 10, 2006. Neversoft's GUN shipped last year for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Xbox 360, and PC.