Old Legend
This being a Western tale, you'll spend most of your time in the countryside.
The Old West, despite being an absolute kickass backdrop for any story, hasn't really gotten the love it deserves in video games. Sure, there's Red Dead Redemption, one of my favorite games of all time, as well as a handful of other games, but they're few and far between.
Hot off the heels of it's disastrous, and racist predecessor CoJ: The Cartel, Gunslinger is looking to return the series to it's gun totting, tobacco spitting, Wild West roots. Is this a tale worth listening to?
Long Winded
Duels require concentration, and a quick trigger finger.
The framing device for Gunslinger is that of a long, long story being told by legendary bounty hunter Silas Greaves, who stopped into an innocuous bar for a drink and ran into some fans. Silas has an odd penchant for mistaken identity, with his actions often getting attributed to other more infamous names. The story device works well enough, and is actually woven into the game with the sets changing as Silas remembers, or mis-remembers minor details. Ladders fall into place magically, and caves appear from nowhere. At one point there's a break in the action because Silas gets up to pee. It's an entertaining yarn that feels right at home in an old pulp-fiction book.
You'll run into a laundry list of Wild West heroes and villians, and almost every chapter is capped off with an interesting boss fight. You'll face down Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, and many more in your journey. There are collectible "nuggets" of truth you can find throughout the game that offer actual stories of what happened to all these people. It's a wide roster and it's exciting to see so many infamous stars of a wild time. At the very least Gunslinger is a well researched game.
Six Shooter
Special characters get an animated intro, including one mean-ass shotgun.
It helps that Gunslinger is also an incredibly satisfying shooter. Shooting is smooth and precise, allowing you to line up shots with ease. There are only a handful of guns, unfortunately, and this being the wild west most guns only hold a handful of shots. That means your shots need to be precise, a facet further emphasized by Gunslinger's scoring system.
For whatever ludicrous reason Gunslinger is meant to be played like an arcade shooter, assigning you points based on your actions. Nail a headshot, that's 100 points. Nail that headshot from a good range? 200 points. Do it in slow motion while you're enemy is running? 500 points. Scoring consecutive kills will increase your multiplier too, meaning that at the end of a good firefight you'll be earning points like it was going out of style. Aside from an arbitrary measure of you're skill, these points also contribute to leveling you up.
There are three paths to choose from in Gunslinger: the pistol wielding Gunslinger, the ranged rifle specialist Ranger, and the shotgun and dynamite blasting Trapper. As you upgrade these paths you'll unlock perks to outfit your character with, as well as a number of special weapon variants that can really change how you play. It's all very light and linear, but it fits well with the game and makes scoring points mean something.
Returning from Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is the idea of duels. Like any classic Western tale these are short, violent, and tense as all hell. You'll need to focus on the enemy while also moving your hand into position and listening for the countdown. Gunslinger mixes up the formula a bit by making each fight unique from the others. Some enemies will dodge after pulling iron, some won't move at all to unnerve you, and at one point you'll even have a three-way Mexican Standoff a-la The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. In each of these you'll have the option to wait until your opponent pulls their gun and killing them honorably, or getting the jump like a low-down dirty bandit. It's a minor choice, but can affect your score.
Home on the Range
Combo-ing trick shots results in a better score, and a more satisfying kill.
Better then the visuals is the sound design of Gunslinger. A special honor goes to veteran voice actor John Cygan who provides the voice work for Silas Greaves. Cygan nails the aging hero feel of Greaves perfectly and carries the lions share of the story by himself. Not to say the voice acting is bad anywhere else, and all the main characters turn in great performances.
The sound design is equally great. The guns sound bombastic, grating, and metallic like real old West guns should. These were tools meant to be used and they all sound as good as they feel, making the shooting that much more satisfying. Gunshots cling and clang off various surfaces, and even when there's no shooting going on the soundscape really helps to immerse you in this old Western tale.
Fistful of Dollars
Right before death you'll have the chance to dodge one last bullet. Do so successfully and you live that much longer.
All that said, Gunslinger regularly reveals it's obvious budget title nature. List price for Gunslinger is ~ $15, and it's constantly obvious that it was never meant to be as good as it turned out. There's only a handful of characters to cut down on voice actors, with most character's narration being delivered by Greaves as part of his story. Even then, none of the characters have animated lip-synch, and they shift around to cover this. Levels are short, and the entire game can be cleared in about 3-4 hours. There's new game plus, and an arcade score-attack mode, but there's just not that much game here.
Gunslinger is a game indicative of it's own subject matter. Gunfights in the old West were short and brutal, but made for great stories. In that vein, Gunslinger is a very, very short but enjoyable experience that weaves a good yarn. It is a budget title and other better games exist, but this is definitely a tale worth listening to.
Image Sources:
http://www.vgblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/20/Call_of_Juarez_Gunslinger.jpg
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