Cocked and Ready: Shotgun Review
Fake Guns
The fascination with virtual weapons through the iPhone’s touch screen is a bizarre one, but it can simply be an extension for the pre-adolescent playground war simulations. Only this one has actual sounds and can actually get you arrested on a plane. Shotgun, both the pro and free versions, is an incarnation of this. Just like the others, it fails to bring much to the table, especially when you are forced to pay for it.
Using Your Shotgun
When you open the program, you are asked to Launch Shotgun. When you do, you are given a fairly minimalist image of a shotgun. At the bottom of the screen will be a bright red bar that says UNLOADED in the center. To load it, you have to shake the phone horizontally back and then forth to cock it. It will then inform you as to whether it is fully cocked or only half cocked. Then you have to jerk to the phone up, as if it was “recoiling,” to fire it. It then emits the fabulously accurate sound of a shotgun blast and returns to its unloaded position.
Money and Free
That is pretty much all for Shotgun Free, except for an annoying ad bar that graces the title screen. There is also Shotgun Pro, which costs a relatively inexpensive $0.99 but is still enough to make you wonder why you should ever pay for something like this. The pro version offers more guns that the singular one of Shotgun Free, but is that really enough.
How much would you pay for the briefest of distractions, especially since just minor changes get you a free iPhone application with almost the same benefits? Think about whether or not you really want to begin wasting your money on paid iPhone applications that should be free.
Better than Competition
Put against others in the field of gun simulators Shotgun ends up being better than most because of its innovative interactivity. That does not mean that you should actually go out and download it. The value of the program is not necessarily determined by comparing it to similar ones, but mostly the entire lot available. Five out of ten stars.
