Everyone loves an underdog, and if ever there were a developer who could, until recently, have been considered an underdog, that developer was Rewolf Software. After all, how many full games have been developed on no budget to speak of? Yet, after years of toil, Rewolf managed it and that game, Gunman Chronicles, turned out to be a pretty darn good title. The game only recently went commercial and at first was going to be released as a mod. However, after deciding they deserved some reward for their efforts (fair enough in my opinion) Rewolf teamed up with Valve to put the finishing touches to the game before unleashing it on the general public. What's it like? Well, it's best described as a polished tribute to Half Life. As in Half-Life, things go wrong from the start and only get worse, and you're the guy stuck in the middle of it all. It's a little short (I managed to complete it in just over a day) but the levels are so varied, the configurable guns so cool and the action such as blast that it's hard to care. The choice between Gunman Chronicles and Soldier of Fortune for the very respectable third place amongst shooters this year was a tricky one, but while Soldier of Fortune was a little more polished (it's a Raven game – I wouldn't expect any less), Gunman just edged it because of the extra originality in the weapons and story line as well as a certain special something that meant I just couldn't put the title down.
- Customisable guns
- The story is a nice change from that of your usual futuristic shooter
- Some memorable action scenes
- Doesn't take too long to complete
- The Half Life engine is looking a little dated now, even though Rewolf make excellent use of it