Gunman Chronicles
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''Gunman Chronicles'' is a 2000
first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...
game originally created as a
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by the now defunct Rewolf Software. It was originally a '' Quake'' deathmatch mod named Gunmanship 101, then it was moved to ''
Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter, first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake (series), ''Quake'' series, following ''Quake (video game), Quake''. Develope ...
''s engine before becoming a ''
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'' mod. ''Gunman Chronicles'' was popular at the Half-Life Mod Expo in 1999, and Sierra approached Rewolf to make a retail version. After significant work, Rewolf was given some office space, funding and a mapper (Jeff Lane) by
Valve Software Valve Corporation, also known as Valve Software, is an American video game developer, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform Steam and the g ...
to help complete the project, and it was released as a standalone game. Plans were drawn to release ''Gunman Chronicles'' on
GameCube The is a PowerPC-based home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the suc ...
, but it was never released.


Gameplay

''Gunman Chronicles'' is a first-person shooter that requires the player to perform combat tasks and puzzle solving to advance through the game, much like its predecessor ''Half-Life''. While gameplay is similar to ''Half-Life''s in terms of health-and-armor systems and artificial intelligence, one major aspect of ''Gunman Chronicles'' is the ability to customize each weapon. Each weapon the player obtains has multiple alternate "modes" for various situations; for instance, the starting pistol can be turned into a sniper rifle or a rapid-fire machine-pistol while the MULE, a rocket launcher, can be configured to fire homing rockets, timed explosives, or cluster bombs. Another new aspect of ''Gunman Chronicles'' is the ability to drive vehicles. During the latter half of the game, there is a lengthy vehicle section in which the player is able to drive a tank through a system of canyons. The player occasionally comes across obstacles hindering the tank's path which will require the player to stop and figure out a puzzle or activate a switch. The game features a wide variety of enemies, including rogue Gunmen-turned-bandits, giant dinosaurs, genetically-modified aliens called Xenomes, and robotic attack drones. Bandits will roll around to dodge fire while returning fire with dual pistols or rifles, while Xenomes will charge at the player in packs with reckless abandon and release homing projectiles upon death. Similar to ''Half-Life'', certain objects such as vases and crates can be destroyed to provide ammunition, health, and armor. Unlike ''Half-Life'' however, armor takes the form of actual vests, and can not be replenished by chargers like health can. Unlike ''Half-Life'' and its expansions, ''Gunman Chronicles'', however sparsely, uses cutscenes to tell key parts of the storyline. These usually appear only as transitions between different worlds and levels however, and thus most of the plot is seen through the eyes of the player like in ''Half-Life''.


Synopsis


Setting

According to the game's introductory cutscene, the Gunmen act as a sort of military police force for humanity's inter-galactically expanding colonial empire at an unknown time period in the distant future. During a mission five years prior to the beginning of the game, the Gunmen were dispatched to a planet called Banzure Prime to investigate a communications breakdown with a research colony there, under the command of their leader, known simply as "The General". While investigating the colony, they come under attack by massive, worm-like organisms that form one part of a larger genus of creatures known as "Xenomes". The General, seeing his men have no chance by themselves, takes command of one of the Gunmen's dropships and begins performing bombing runs on the attacking Xenomes, destroying several before being captured in the jaws of one of the larger creatures. Meanwhile, the player character, Major Archer, rallies the remaining gunmen and orders them to retreat to the remaining ships and get off-world immediately, assuming that the general is already dead. The General, still alive as his fighter is dragged underground, pleads (apparently unheard) for rescue over the radio, but the Gunmen leave before having a chance to receive the message.


Plot

Five years later, the game places the player in direct control of Major Archer, preparing for a mission aboard the Gunman space station Aeronautica. After a training level, Archer and a small detachment of Gunmen are deployed to a dinosaur-inhabited jungle planet, under orders to investigate an outdated but extremely high ranking Gunman distress signal. The signal is revealed to be a trap, and the Gunmen come under heavy attack both from unidentified human forces and the indigenous fauna. The player is eventually forced to fight his way through a series of catacombs, where he encounters the General, still alive despite having been eaten alive on Banzure Prime. He reveals to Archer that the silicon-based Xenomes are incapable of digesting carbon-based humans, and that he, the scientists from the research colony, and the other Gunmen consumed by the Xenomes managed to fight their way out of the creature's gullets after Archer left them for dead. The vengeful scientists and Gunmen have now formed a rogue cell, with the General as its leader, and are engineering new Xenome breeds to use as weapons and to exact their vengeance upon Archer. The General allows Archer to leave, so as to watch him die at the hands of the planet's vicious reptiles, but he manages to infiltrate the General's cargo ship, bound for a falling moon that plays host to an outdated AI, called the Mainframe, that has been unstable for some time since the General left it. At the moon, the ship comes under fire from the now fully insane AI's drones. The General dumps the cargo module Archer is hiding in to gain speed and leaves the AI facility's science team behind to die. As Archer progresses through the facility, he learns that the Mainframe's primary battle is with a major Xenome infestation that the humans brought onto the moon. Fighting both attack drones and Xenomes alike, Archer makes his way through the facility. Despite the Mainframe's best efforts, Archer manages to destroy most of the "kata-space anchors" that keep the moon from falling to the planet below. Archer survives the destruction of the anchors, but is stranded on the falling moon. Archer eventually finds the Mainframe and they form an uneasy alliance: the Mainframe will provide an aerial drone for Major Archer to escape in, but only if he takes the Mainframe's core with him. Major Archer agrees, and they battle through hordes of Xenome forces with the help of the Mainframe's attack drones. Major Archer and the AI successfully reach and board the aerial drone, but fail to navigate through an asteroid field on their way into kata-space and crash land on a desert planet called Icnus, encountering and fighting rogue Gunmen. Icnus turns out to be the location of the General's main Xenome facility. Archer battles his way through the facility with the help of the Mainframe, accidentally causing a captured Worm Xenome, one of the most dangerous Xenomes in existence, to break loose. The Mainframe helps Archer to the General's location and they engage in a firefight, where the AI's newly constructed Super Drone defeats the General's Kata-Drone. The General bails out but is immediately attacked by the escaped Worm Xenome, which comes out of a crevice and consumes him once again. The Mainframe states its intention to make the Xenome facility its home as it calls for backup, and Gunman reinforcements arrive shortly after to contain the Xenome infestation and capture any remaining rogue Gunmen.


Rewolf Software

Rewolf Software, also known as Rewolf Entertainment, was a
game development game development (sometimes shortened to gamedev) is the process of creating a video game. It is a multidisciplinary practice, involving programming, design, art, audio, user interface, and writing. Each of those may be made up of more specialize ...
studio established in
Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
by Herbert Flower (also known as Herb Flower) in 1996. The development team came from the mod scene and was put together for the duration of one project, which was ''Gunman Chronicles''. After ''Gunman Chronicles'' was shipped, Rewolf Entertainment dissolved and its team members moved on to new ventures. A couple of months later, in 2001, Herbert Flower co-founded Mythyn Interactive together with Paul Witte. The core team that worked on ''Gunman'', consisting of Stefan Baier, Renier Banninga, and Adrian Banninga, moved to the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, where they co-founded
Streamline Studios Streamline Studios, founded in 2001, is a global creative and technology company for video games and beyond. Their partners include Capcom, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Square Enix, BBC Sport, and Balenciaga. GenVid Technologies, Epic Games, Unity3D, and ...
together with Alexander L. Fernandez.


Reception

The game received mixed reviews according to the
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website
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
. Jim Preston of '' NextGen'' called it "A respectable mod that's still no better than some of the free stuff out there." John Marrin of ''
GamePro ''GamePro'' was an American multiplatform video game magazine media company that published online and print content covering the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software. The magazine featured content on various video ...
'' called it "a worthy title if you hanker for a reheated FPS experience. It's like day old meatloaf: still delicious, but still meatloaf."


See also

*
List of video games derived from modifications A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...


Notes


References


External links

* * {{Portal bar, Video games 2000 video games Biopunk Cancelled GameCube games First-person shooters GoldSrc games GoldSrc mods Multiplayer and single-player video games Multiplayer online games Space Western video games Steampunk video games Video games about dinosaurs Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Cris Velasco Windows games Windows-only games