This title shows that you don't need modern graphics to make a good game. What really matters is a graphical design and a good storytelling. Thanks to that the game will always look very charming and attractive. It is not really FPS but shooting is suprisingly fun even with old school controls.
This adventure game has one of the most interesting mystery stories ever and its presentation is simply a huge achievement in minimalism. The voice acting is superb and immersive (including top notch original Russian dubbing), the graphics is charming, the style is beautiful, the platforming is fun and the mystery is so good you want to know more and more about the planet and what happened there. The game looks like it was made in late 90's and if it really had been made at that time it would surely have been be a huge hit and a classic. Now, 10 years later after its release to me it is a classic. A really memorable piece of art obviously made with love. The game is not challenging but if you like lineral mysterious stories and fun platforming then get it without a second thought.
If you like well written psychological mystery adventures this is exactly what to get. All the characters are very interesting and the acting is amazing. The graphics look still good and the music is also very nice. It is just a well made game. There are some easy puzzles here and there but the main theme of the game is the psychological study of a sick mind.
I expected there to be a realistic investigation, interesting characters, maybe some backstory, flashbacks, etc. in the game. There is nothing of that. No kind of realism whatsoever. You just look for single pages that are all over the map. The game is just an empty map where you go from the point A to the point B and pick pages that complete the story. It looks almost like an unfinished project. I lost all the interest right at the beginning of the game when I was spoonfed that it were all monsters who were to blame for the disappearence of the students. That should be maybe somewhere at the end of the game as a resolution and not at the beginning. The real explanation would be also preferable but in that case they would have to put some more work into the story. So they killed all the thrill of gradation and joy of discovery in a game that should be all just about that. What is there to left? Wandering around in the dark with a compass and a map, collecting notes about the history of these disappeared students and finding these monsters hives. I did not care anymore. Yes it has nice atmosphere but without any driving force it is just a boring walking that you want to have over as soon as possible. There are more issues like no Russian audio in a story that takes place is in USSR, impossibility to save the game whenever you want, the fact it is all in the dark and therefore you can't really enjoy even the enviroment very much, despite it being a so called open world map you have very limited possibilites how to get to your desired location, you have to travel on the predetermined trails, you can't even jump or climb. There simply are not that many interesting things.
They tried to top COJ1 by improving the things that did not work, by adding more characters, more interesting stuff and they mostly succeeded in that aspect (apart from the lame comics over the top villain). On the other hand your freedom of movement is more restricted. Yes, the first game was also quite lineral but it could hide that fact rather well. The game suffers from some nasty technical issues. First of all FOV (field of view) is just horrible and will cause you a headache. This can be fixed by installing a patch, then it is acceptable but you will also get some other visual issues (all the guns will look too long for instance). Secondly the muddy grey graphic is just a pain for your eyes and sometimes I could hardly see enemies and again if you are sensitive to this kind of thing it might cause you a headache as well.
As incredible as it might sound up today there are only a handful of western FPS games and even less good ones. I can only think of Outlaws and Call of Juarez trilogy and that is it. So any new western fps will be close to the top but Gunslinger is a really good game on its own. It is basically a simulator of a badass gunslinger. If you ever longed to shoot bad guys in wild west with a colt, a rifle and a shotgun then this is your dream come true. It is needed to mention that it is a very lineral game with elements of on-rail shooters especially compared to COJ 1 and 2. Sometimes you get some free choice how to attack but mostly it is just a corridor like game. There is even a story which is quite funny and badass but it is also completely redundant. It is not a story driven adventure like its two predecessors. You will likely forget the entire storyline in a week. So in the end it is mainly focused on action and the action is amazing.
The shooting is just incredibly boring in the game and despite it being open world it feels like you do the exact same thing all over again at the same looking locations. It looked good back then when we were all amazed by the rapid progress of the graphics but that is just what it was. A novelty. Nowadays you see the graphic is just very bland without any cham.
