The Gunstringer (Xbox 360)

Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral faced quite a few challenges when adapting traditional game styles to its full body control method, simple actions like walking complicated when you’re meant to stand in place so the camera can track you. While many developers were content to create minigames or gimmicky play around the controller instead, the development team at Twisted Pixel Games managed to hit on a genre that would not feel as limited by the controller free motion sensing: the rail shooter. Not only do rail shooters already feature automatic forward movement as part of their design, but the player already packs a perfect stand-in for a gun by way of a finger pointing towards the screen.

 

The Gunstringer requires the Kinect to play but only really needs the use of a pair of hands per participating player. One hand is held in a classic finger gun shape to control the weapon of the game’s protagonist, the player moving the aiming reticle on screen around to lock on to enemies or targets before throwing their hand back in a firing motion to let loose up to six shots. If the player quickly aims at more eligible targets before every shot is fired, they can continue to inexplicably chain together more shots despite the main weapon in the context of the game being a six shooter, this allowance making it easier to clear away crowds or large assemblies of road blocks that could impede the automatic running of the game’s eponymous character. Unfortunately, while this finger gun firing method seems like a pretty natural setup, it’s not exactly perfect. Aiming works well enough and your infinite ammo shots lock on well enough, but firing the weapon requires a good degree of kick to register. It’s easy to realize you need to put some force into the action if it’s not cooperating, but even once you’ve got it down you need to remain pretty consistent or else you’ll end up not firing in the game’s sometimes high pace action moments.

The actions of your other hand are the ones that are more testy. The Gunstringer is a story told as a marionette show on a very accommodating and constantly shifting stage, the title character able to run forward on his own well enough but the left and right movement still being put in one of the player’s hands. Holding your hand like you’re holding his strings from above, the player needs to move that hand around to dodge objects and avoid incoming fire in the running sections of the game or lean out around cover when the game comes to a halt for shootouts. Your cover in shootouts is pretty much perfect at shielding you so the control woes won’t appear there, but in the areas where you need to dodge and move in real time, you’ll often find the movement of the marionette character can be a bit unresponsive or on delay. You can’t really overcompensate to try and make sure the movement registers properly either, the game growing to require some character placement that, while not precise, does position you between two damaging hazards you’ll end up hitting if you’re a little off. Jumping is also handled with this marionette controlling hand, the player pulling their hand up in the air to make The Gunstringer leap up, this action often needing to be performed in advance to ensure the character has the time to register the motion and perform it. While the occasional flub of a shot in The Gunstringer can be overlooked once you’re used to it, the consistent inaccuracy of movement in a game that likes to continuously make new challenges for it ends up weighing down most of the experience despite the game being generous with healing tacos to try and accommodate it.

 

Luckily, there is plenty to like in the game, especially when it comes to its presentation and humor. The marionette stage play aspect of it is constantly embraced, from having live action people watching and reacting to the game’s events in some cheesy overacting to some actual interference both beneficial and detrimental from giant human hands that alter battles and level environments. The plot is presented entirely through an old cowboy type narrator who is describing the action as if he was telling a legend of the Old West, but even though he’s taking things seriously and using some grand metaphors to tell the tale, the story itself is fairly absurd and full of comedic moments made even stronger by the fact this storyteller is treating them more seriously than the rest of the game is. The Gunstringer himself is a silent hero, the marionette lead an angry undead cowboy who is seeking revenge on his old posse who betrayed him.

Tracking each of his old friends down helps to set up the different level types you’ll encounter along the adventure. Early stages take you through some typical Wild West locations like a dusty old town and the desert as you chase down the Oil Baron, but to get to characters like The Brothel Madam requires a trip down the river and into New Orleans, the voodoo woman taps on the supernatural for her stages, and the samurai cowboy seems unsure what his country of origin should be as he mixes ninja minions with portions of the Great Wall of China he has set up in the American West. The bosses are certainly silly but delightful for it, especially since quite a few of them are different types of puppets entirely. The first one you fight is actually a wavy inflatable tube man and a corrupt sheriff looks very similar to a Sesame Street Muppet, this attempt to incorporate different puppet design even extending to the regular enemies with things like waves of paper puppet zombies and stampeding steer made from old tin cans. In a strange choice though, the boss battles all shift away from the games usual behind the back view of The Gunstringer to a single screen affair where you move the marionette around to dodge the boss and slam into them within a confined two-dimensional space. This gameplay shift isn’t too bad at first, but as it happens for each different member of your old posse, you’ll quickly notice most of the bosses fight you in a pretty similar manner, usually packing a character specific attack or two but falling into spin attacks and stun periods that make them feel like they’re all cut from the same cloth instead of truly unique battles.

 

The regular levels try to pack in plenty of variety beyond just their appearance though. The most common sections are the run and gun ones where you need to focus on your position and your firing simultaneously, the game usually focusing one or the other more to ensure you can respond to obstacles well enough. Sometimes you’ll end up climbing aboard a horse, riding a firework through the sky, or riding a gator through the river for speedier segments while at other times you will slow down and take up a position behind barrels and other cover as you poke out periodically to fire on whoever is firing at you. Most enemies are pretty similar in design. Many have some attack they wait a bit to execute but you still have a chance to avoid it after or even shoot it down in some cases, but a few times you’ll be given new ways to take down enemies. Swinging your fists around in a forward charge is one of the smaller breakaways, but every now and then you’ll be gifted a new weapon to mow down hordes of incoming enemies. The flamethrower is almost mindless in how easy its spray and pray killing method works and the sword can be swung wildly to great effect, but the shotgun requires more consistent aim for these segments that are otherwise pretty much just moments to revel in the carnage of killing huge groups of weak enemies.

THE VERDICT: The Gunstringer certainly doesn’t lack ideas for shakeups to its style, stages, and shooting methods, and its easy to tell Twisted Pixel Games had a lot of fun coming up with new ways to toy with its marionette style and Western setting. However, everything that works about The Gunstringer is unfortunately tangled up in the Kinect controls, reliance on shaky movement options outright hurting the game and the shooting not robust enough to undo that damage. It’s still a solid video game for what it is, but its strings definitely hold it down and keep it from being as good as it should have been.

 

And so, I give The Gunstringer for Xbox 360…

An OKAY verdict. While it is commendable that Twisted Pixel Games tried to make a more traditional gaming experience with the Kinect, that aspect of it ends up being what holds the game back. Things like similar boss fights and the mediocre special weapon sections are still certainly areas for improvement even if a more traditional control method was chosen, and certain things like the the running sections would have to be more difficult since you could properly respond without the Kinect being fussy about your body’s position, but The Gunstringer is a good game that took the knock to its quality to help Microsoft’s peripheral have a better library. The Kinect isn’t actually up to snuff when it comes to precisely tracking fingers so a more aim focused shooter wasn’t an option, but the style mostly works well in the form it assumed.

 

You can tell Twisted Pixel Games really enjoys creating games, partly because they’re actually in The Gunstringer as the audience who look like they’re having a blast hamming it up for the cameras. The enjoyment is infectious in a way, and coupled with a good degree of creativity and humor, The Gunstringer is a game you want to like. It is beholden to the Kinect, but not in such a way that the fun is completely buried, so while it’s not all it could have been, it’s still a decent and likeable game and certainly a good pick for people looking to get into Kinect gaming.