Through a series of on stage performances, you puppeteer the Gunstringer in a western-themed revenge story. Taking cues from classic spaghetti westerns all the way to modern revenge tales, players will puppeteer the Gunstringer through a wide range of jaw-dropping moments in order to seek revenge on the posse that betrayed him and left him for dead.

The Gunstringer marries Twisted Pixel's beloved story, character gameplay and polish with fresh gameplay mechanics. From the feel of actually puppeteering a character through a variety of 3D and 2D gameplay styles, all the way to modern twists like competing against your friends via leaderboards and drop-in and drop-out local co-op support, The Gunstringer provides players with fun gameplay experiences that haven't been seen before.

Originally slated for release early this year on Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft Game Studios and Twisted Pixel announced that the Kinect exclusive shooter The Gunstringer will be coming to retail.

“The ball got rolling at an executive retreat where The Gunstringer was made available to some pretty important people, including Steve Ballmer,” said Twisted Pixel CEO, Michael Wilford. “We were stoked to hear shortly afterwards that everyone loved the game and wanted to give it bigger exposure in the retail market.”

It was also revealed that The Gunstringer will get its launch this September, in time for the holidays. “This is our first retail title, so we’re putting everything we have into making it awesome,” says Twisted Pixel’s game director, Josh Bear. “We worked with Microsoft to get the time we needed to take the design in some ambitious directions that weren’t going to be possible before. We were already excited about the game, but now we’ve able to do even more with it.”

Key Features:

• The Puppet Master Experience: The Gunstringer is an awesome cowboy marionette that you get to control! Kinect allows you to fully move the Gunstringer through his adventures as if you were actually performing, even when sitting on a couch.
• Full Ensemble: Whether it's a second person jumping in and shooting alongside you or tracking and competing against your friend's progress on Xbox LIVE through leaderboards, The Gunstringer takes standard solo platforming and shooting mechanics and evolves them for fun competitive action.
• Encore performances: With a full suite of collectables, unlockables, abilities, rewards and more, there's always a reason to play an encore performance!
• Extensive animation sets for Gunstringer and other characters to highlight personality.
• 4 main plays, 2 acts each, plus an intro and finale
• Entire set pieces drop in front of player.
• Seamless 3D <-> 2D gameplay transitions.
• Numerous objects and enemies.
• Stage-based level select and backstage area that functions as a hub.