Gunman Chronicles

Gunman Chronicles
The US box art for Gunman Chronicles. European variations mimicked the style of Half-Life's box art.
Developer(s)	Rewolf Software Valve Software
Publisher(s)	Sierra Studios
Engine	GoldSrc
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	November 20, 2000
Genre(s)	First-person shooter Sci-Fi Western Action Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Gunman Chronicles or Half-Life: Gunman (previously Gunman: TC and simply Gunman) is a futuristic first-person shooter video game originally created as a mod by the now defunct Rewolf Software. Gunman Chronicles was originally a Quake deathmatch mod named Gunmanship 101, then it was moved to Quake II's engine before becoming a Half-Life mod. At the Half-Life Mod Expo in 1999, Gunman Chronicles stole the show 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 to help complete the project. It was released as a standalone game.

Plot

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, apatasaurus-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.

The game skips five years ahead and places the player in direct control of Major Archer, preparing for a mission aboard a Gunman space station dubbed '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 soon 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 sneak onto the Generals cargo ship, bound for a falling moon that plays host to an outdated AI that has been unstable for sometime since the General left it. At the moon, the ship comes under fire from the now fully insane AI's aerial drone. The General dumps the cargo module Archer is hiding in and leaves the AI facility's science team behind.

As Archer progresses through the facility, he learns that the AI's primary battle is not with the humans, but with a major Xenome infestation. Despite the Archer and the AI's best efforts, the Xenomes manage to destroy most of the counter-space anchors that keep the moon from falling to the planet below. The AI and Archer come to a truce, in exchange for help escaping the moon, Archer agrees to take the AI's mainframe core with it. Major Archer and the AI get on an aerial drone, but fail to navigate through an asteroid field and crash land on a desert planet called Icnus which turns out to be the General's main Xenome facility. Archer battles his way through the facility and causes the plant xenome to break loose.

The AI helps Archer to the General's location and engage in a firefight. The AI Super Drone defeats his Kata-Drone and as he is walking across the balance beam, the plant Xenome comes out of the crevice and eats him once again as he is saying "I will now have to kill you with my bare hands like I did with ...*ate*". More Gunmen troops arrive shortly after and control the Xenome infestation. The AI makes the facility its home.

Influence, Genres and Themes

Gunman Chronicles, taking place at an unknown time in the distant future, contains many themes, most notably the design focuses on Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Futuristic and Western. While the game takes advantage of these in many instances, it still has a wide variety of influences. The Gunmen's Federal Starbase, Aeronautica, and the Facility at the Ferrin Moon harbor a vast collection of Techno-Futuristic and Cyberpunk themes and architecture, although they also seem to contain many designs, most notably textures and architecture, that bear striking resemblance in appearance to some of the works of the Swiss artist; H.R. Giger, who is best known for designing the Xenomorph creatures for Ridley Scott's award winning film Alien and it's sequels. Many Xenome creatures in the game also resemble Giger's work. Parts of the Gunman Chronicles world seem to contain influences from novels such as Dune.

Demo

A demo for Gunman Chronicles was created by Maverick Developments, who also created the training room level shipped with the original version of Counter-Strike. The demo included levels not available in the full game. These can be added into the regular gameflow using the Gunman Chronicles Demo Addon.

Online shutdown and abandonment

Just like the games and mods developed by Valve at the time, Gunman Chronicles used WON Server technology for online multiplayer. However, after the official closing down of these servers on July 26, 2004, the game was never given an alternative method to play online, leaving its community in state of abandonment. Rewolf, the company behind the game, was dissolved and never released a patch to correct designing mistakes; Sierra closed its official forum and the game was never released on Steam. There is however a 3rd party port to Steam, called Gunman to Steam Patch, which is still available for download and use.

As previously mentioned, unlike the popular Half-Life 1 mods, Gunman Chronicles has never been officially released on Steam. However, redeeming a Gunman Chronicles CD-key on Steam gives access to a "Half-Life Platinum Pack" that includes Half-Life 1 and several add-ons: Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life Deathmatch, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Team Fortress Classic, Ricochet and Day of Defeat, but not Gunman Chronicles.

See also

• Valve Software
• Rewolf Software
• WON
• Half-Life
• Counter-Strike
• GoldSrc

External links

• Gunman Chronicles at IMDb
• Gunman to Steam - Gunman to Steam patch homepage.
• Gunman Chronicles Quake II Edition
• Gunman Chronicles Dedicated Server Tool - Gamespot (Registration/login required)
• Gunman Chronicles Dedicated Server Tool - FilePlanet (Registration/login required)
• Gunman Chronicles MP3 Pack - High quality MP3 soundtrack (for Steam).
• Gunman Chronicles Demo
• Gunman Chronicles on Metacritic
• Gunman Chronicles review on GameSpot
• Gunman Chronicles review at IGN