Duke Nukem Forever
60 Achievements
1,205
25-31h
Gunslinger
Carry the gold pistol through the whole SP campaign
50
How to unlock the Gunslinger achievement in Duke Nukem Forever - Definitive Guide
The golden pistol is the first weapon you pick up after the introduction, and is given to you by the AI in the Duke Cave. You must take the gun to proceed. It is also given to you right before the final boss fight, after you lose all your weapons.
During the campaign, you CAN drop the pistol. You do not have to be holding the gun all the way through the campaign. As long as you pick it up again before moving on, you will get the achievement.
One thing to watch out for is hitting a checkpoint without the pistol and then dying, as all the pickups get reset. If this happens, you are in trouble. Therefore, I'd not recommend straying too far from it, or leaving it on the ground for too long.
On a tactical note, the pistol is a fairly decent weapon, and is good for getting head shots. It can kill enemies fairly quickly and has a comparatively generous amount of ammunition available to it. It can be a bit bothersome during boss battles, where it would be nice to have an RPG and a Devastator to avoid constantly running to supply drops. As mentioned above though, I would try and hold on to the golden gun as much as possible and not risk dropping it, as the bosses can be cheap and kill you quickly.
All in all, this is not a hard achievement, but does require some tactical decision making at times in terms of what the other gun you take with you is.
On a final note, there is always a rocket launcher near any given boss, so taking along an appropriate weapon (shotgun in tunnels, rail gun/Enforcer Gun in open areas) is usually a safe bet.
Good luck, and good hunting. Come get some!
Just found out that you don't need to carry gold pistol through all levels on the same difficulty level! You can do it on multiple playthroughs. Basically what I mean is that you can carry the pistol through 5 first levels on Casual, then 5 next levels on Normal and rest of levels on Insane (actually in any order) -- you will get the achievement anyway.
I finished my Insane run sticking to the golden pistol on all but couple levels where I've lost the pistol (it disappeared from the floor). So after I beat Insane, I replayed just those two levels on Casual and got the achievement. Moreover that saved me from replaying Bitch Queen and Forkstop levels on Insane (since I didn't care about golden pistol on my first normal run somehow).
That makes this achievement even easier. Enjoy your 50G!
It's an accurate little gun so it won't handicap you unless you are playing on hard.
The pistol has low ammo capacity and a small clip size, but is a decent weapon if you’re good at headshots, so hanging on to it isn’t much of a handicap.
The gold pistol is Duke's own special made M1911. The only times you are able to get this gun is in the end of "The Duke Cave" and in the beginning of "Final Battle". For this trophy you want to carry the gun all the way through every chapter, from "The Duke Cave" to the end of the game, which is very easy if you're playing on Easy. I would not recommend it, but feel free to exchange your pistol for any other gun if needed and pick it up later again. But remember to always be close to it so you can find it again. All you want to do is to complete each possible chapter with it in any order you like. What you should do is to keep in mind that if you for some reason would swap your pistol for another weapon and happen to die or reload the last checkpoint, you won't have the gold pistol any more. Also, triggering a checkpoint while you don't have the pistol can cause the pistol to disappear. If you would happen to lose the pistol during the game you can go back to the chapter you lost it on via Chapter Select and continue from there at any time you want. When using Chapter Select you will always start with just the gold pistol, so you're good to go. After defeating the final boss the trophy will unlock.