RPG elements in a shooter don't work. Shooting does however, and is fun. Overall not bad, not good either.
The controls are easy to get the hang of, however the circumstances are not. While the preacher levels are all simple "shoot to kill", the kid missions often involve a lot of climbing and swinging from the whip, also a lot of boring sneaking and stealth. While all of these would be fun and easy in an RPG or third person view, they are not only hard and frustrating, but just plain boring in first person mode. The cool thing is, the whip can be used to fight and disarm enemies, which is useful if caught in the open. Playing as the kid often requires you to scavenge for whatever weapon you can find. The preacher can't jump and climb like the kid can, however he doesn't need to. He can blast his way through any and everything with his 6 shooters and rifle. The weapons are fun to wield that cannot be denied. When using the pistols, you can holster them, and quickly draw them again to activate a slow motion mode, at which point you have a limited matter of seconds to shoot as many enemies as you can before the time runs out. This slow time feature is cool as you can walk into a building with pistols down, draw and within a matter of seconds, have down 4 enemies. It's very fun. This carries over into duels, where quite often in the game, instead of a boss; a main character will challenge you to a duel. In this case, you both must holster your weapons, and then draw and kill your opponent before he can do that to you. Its fast and tense. Another thing you can do, which is completely ridiculous, and possibly the dumbest thing I've seen in a shooter, is you can take out a bible and read passages of revelation to your enemies. This bamboozles them, allowing you to shoot them as they listen. Stupid and pointless. I played the whole game through and didn't touch it.
Overall the game is quite good fun. The action sequences fun but short lived, few, and far between. There is too much wandering around climbing and jumping and not enough FPS action. Horse riding doesn't look as good as the rest of the game, which has pretty good graphics. Voice acting and sound is not all that good. While the weapons sound good, the talking and voices sound off somehow. You're more likely to get bored or frustrated with this game long before you complete it. The multiplayer has very little going for it. Something like Call of Duty 3 you can choose you class at the start of each re-spawn and that dictates your weapon layout. Unfortunately the hit system is very bad, as is the character movements around the maps. The maps are authentic and western looking, but the problem is the players moving around them. From your point of view, you see only your gun, however when you see someone else running around, their feet are not on the ground, their body seems completely separate from the game world, their shadows move inconsistently and the hit system means that even if you miss by a foot, there is a chance you might still get the kill. The multiplayer sadly, had nothing going for it. All in all, value for money? I'd pay no more than £15 and trade it in again. It has little to no replay value, even if you complete it. This is a shame as the game had great potential.