Wolf in sheep's clothing: this game is Wii shovelware disguised to appeal to 'core gaming sensibilities'
Don't believe the hype: this game no different from what most 'core' gamers have come to expect from Wii/Kinect/Move shovelware minigame collections. It's totally on rails, but offers no depth to shooting to compensate; it does not do anything to differentiate itself in terms of controls and gameplay, even with the opportunities presented by a marionette protagonist; and it tries to rely on the idea of 'making gaming fun' by removing any kind of challenge or depth.
Just an example, wherever else would you get to play platform sections *on-rails*, just flicking your arm up to jump? And no, the jump doesn't even change much according to your movements - just flick a little to jump high and far enough to cover three times the longest distance needed. There's no way to go quicker or slower, just jump whenever you feel like it's needed. You'll only fail if Kinect doesn't read your gesture properly. Even Atari-era games had more depth than this.
Worse yet, The Gunstringer doesn't do anything with Kinect that better games, such as Child of Eden or Rise of Nightmares, haven't done before. It just hides behind 'innovations' such as (1) using real actors as if they were 'watching' the game unfold in a theater, (2) spurting uncensored humor out, and (3) the promise that you can play it sitting on the couch. Makes sense, since to the developers, that's what 'core gamers' want: couch, LOLs and the idea that real people somehow validates their laziness.
No wonder such 'core' gamers seem to be *way* more forgiving then they'd otherwise be if this was, say, the exact same game, except made by Hudson or Ubisoft for the Wii. The only real upside to the game is the fact that the controls are generally responsive, but even then it's hard to give it much credit since they're absurdly simple - that is, the game doesn't really go the distance to use Kinect such as Rise of Nightmares or even Kinect Sports did. And even then, they aren't as precise as, say, the controls in Fruit Ninja Kinect. Speaking of which, it's no wonder the game was included here: the publisher knows 'core' gamers are usually way more concerned about value than novelty, and therefore included a second game so to make everyone forget that this was, and should have stayed as, an Xbox Live Arcade game.
What's even more annoying is that the game tries so hard to be funny that just ends up being dead silly. There's a difference between crazy, out-there humor such as in Shadows of the Damned and whatever Gunstringer is trying to do when it shows a grown cowboy stickin' it into a giant alligator; it's not toilet/dick humor, it's 10-year-old-giggling-at-porno-magazines humor. It's the same difference between the lifeless, stale humor of throwing poo around in Duke Nukem Forever and the riotous dick jokes in the height of the action of Bulletstorm.
Which says a lot about how the industry, even its indie side, views 'core' gamers: as complete retards who will never grow up. And in part they're right, given how this trainwreck of a 'game' is being received by so-called 'trusted' gaming portals around. It's sad to notice how platform wars, political ideologies and the need to differentiate oneself from the pack (usually by attaching oneself to *another* pack) have trampled people's best judgements. But time will show how much Gunstringer is forgettable; once the need to 'support the small guy no matter the crap it makes' dwindles off, which inevitably happens, people will notice that this is nothing like the games that made the indie market a reality, such as Limbo or Braid. It's as much a cheap cash-in as any mainstream game made to quickly tap on the huge Kinect install base while the peripheral is still hot, and it's even more shameful at it for trying to reinforce the basement-dweller, anti-social stereotype of 'core' gamer at the same time.
Just wait and see how many user reviews with scores below 6 will pop up in here in a year, when loads of people start to buy it for $5 in bargain bins and come here to ask 'how the heck this game got praised?'. At least they'll get Fruit Ninja Kinect for half the price...