Shotguns are my favorite types of guns. Granted, I’ve never actually fired (or even held) one in real life, but there’s something primitively satisfying about the sound and impact they make. Fortunately for me and other shotgun lovers, there exist multiple shotgun simulators on the Apple App store. I first downloaded Shotgun Free within the first few days of owning my iTouch, but since then I have found better apps with shotguns.
For free however, you can’t really go bad. If you choose to download this app, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get all the fun out of it that it provides. Anyone who shakes their head in disgust at the thought of a shotgun application will call this a waste of time, and while practically everyone who downloads this app will eventually come to call it a waste of time, those people to download it out of curiosity have the inner interest in shotguns necessary to enjoy it to its fullest.
The problem is, there’s not a whole lot to enjoy here. I know Shotgun Pro, the $1 version of this app, has five different guns to fire off, but Shotgun Free only has one. When you push the “Launch Shotgun” button on the app’s startup screen, a simple outline of a gray shotgun appears with the word “unloaded” beneath it. To “load” the shotgun, a simple vertical pump of the iDevice is required. Firing is just as simple: move the loaded shotgun from a horizontal to vertical position. The screen flashes and a fired shot can be heard. Congratulations. That’s it.
Now, there are “achievements” to enhance replay value. These consist of things like “Most Fires in 15 Seconds” or “Longest Streak”, the latter being particularly interesting because all that basically gauges is how long you spend on the app firing the gun in one session. Apparently building up the patience to beat your old session is an achievement, which is pretty much saying that spending any fair amount of time on this app is a difficult task worthy of praise. The real difficulty in Shotgun Free is not working at these “achievements”, which are really just worthless numbers, but getting the gun to work every time. I can’t tell you how many times I have moved my iTouch, trying to fire the gun, only to have nothing happen at all. Perhaps the accelerometer of my iPod is the problem, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that it is the result of lazy development.
But hey, I’m a guy. Guys like guns. Shotgun Free has guns. Using this indirect system of logic, it’s safe to assume that any man remotely interested in guns will be able to get all the enjoyment out of this app that is possible. Which is to say, not very much at all.
Final Score: 
By Josh60502
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