Gunslinger doesn’t go as all-out as Bulletstorm, but it is most certainly in the more arcady and stylish lane of the FPS genre compared to earlier CoJ games. The two are similar in how players can rack up points by performing exceptional kills or chaining kills together. Gunslinger is perhaps most akin to fellow Polish developer People Can Fly’s Bulletstorm when it comes to gameplay. But then again, there is always the option to just draw first. Sometimes even frustratingly challenging, as you can be killed rather easily by one of the quicker opponents. Yet, as they challenge your multitasking skills and are underscored by tense music in the background, they never stop feeling thrilling and challenging. The duels play out similarly every time as you go through the same motions every time. After all, according to Wild West law, it is not so much about who kills who, as it is about who drew first. You get a bonus point-increase for being honorable and letting your enemy draw first. Once you win this boss fight a duel occurs where you need to be quicker and more accurate than your opponent. These fights can be tedious, especially on the highest difficulty setting, but they are usually over in under a minute. The boss fights themselves are arguably Gunslinger’s weakest part and they all play out nearly exactly the same way you run up to a bullet-spouting, bullet-spongy enemy with lethal accuracy, and take him out with your guns or some dynamite. The AI of the average rustler, bandit and Indian is nothing standout-ish, but enemies will use cover and are accurate shots, always offering a challenge. Occasionally, you’ll hit a button to activate bullet-time, which marks enemies red and lets you take more accurate shots. You run around various linear, semi-destructible environments, gunning down every enemy you come across with shotguns, rifles and of course the signature six-shooters of the era, blasting your way through to the final boss on each level. Gameplay-wise, Gunslinger mostly feels no different from the bulk of today’s linear shooters. More importantly though, the fluctuating narrative paints Silas as an unreliable narrator, something you don’t quite often see in a shooter of this kind. You might be taking down a mountain logger’s camps in one minute, then strafing through the tight corridors of a speeding train in the next. This is also helped by the good variety in the level design and enemy types. Sometimes, you’ll have to, with some alterations, play a section of a level all over again which, strangely, works quite well and helps to keep the flow going. Indeed, new routes might pop out, characters that were there before might disappear into thin air, and at one point an entire barn falls out of the sky. More importantly, he even needs to go back and retell some of his stories after being corrected by the other people at the table, which has a direct impact on the actual gameplay. For one, he often forgets certain details and intertwines his tales. However, there are hints here and there that Silas might not always be speaking the truth. You won’t be playing as any of the McCalls during Gunslinger, but Silas is a worthy replacement. There is a fair amount of outrageous things this Silas guy wants you to believe, and each story leads to you taking control over the younger Greaves as he hunts down and presumably kills off almost every single Wild West legend you have ever heard of, and then some. The opening cutscene starts the game off with Silas Greaves, an old retired bounty hunter, seated by a poker table in a saloon, telling stories of his supposed escapades. The narrative of Gunslinger is surprisingly robust for a shooter. Gunslinger’s launch price was $15, which is likely to tempt sceptical players into buying it. Secondly, the price tag is outrageously low for a game published by one of the major companies in the industry Gunslinger is part of Ubisoft’s experimental new program to make smaller, “mini-AAA” games that offer almost the same amount of quality gameplay as a $50 game, but for only a fraction of the price. Not only is this a good move because the amount of Wild West shooters existing on the market is near zero nowadays, but it is also where this franchise belongs. Gunslinger has all the tell-tale signs, the first and most obvious change being the return to Cowboys, Colts and Cigars. It is quite obvious that Techland and Ubisoft were not oblivious to The Cartel’s negative reception.