The Gunstringer is a "Mix of Crash Bandicoot and Rez"(XBOX360)

Wild West shooter The Gunstringer is certainly one of the more interesting-looking games on the way to Kinect, mixing as it does shooting and puppetry, so we had to grab hold of Twisted Pixel to find out more information about the game's influences.

Bill Muehl, game director on The Gunstringer, revealed two of the inspirations behind the unusual title and it's safe to say they're two games we never expected to hear in the same sentence:

The foundation is a combination of the shooter & platformer genres but it has a strong action component too. We're big fans of platformers like Crash Bandicoot and shooters like Rez and those two were big influences on our game mechanics.

A combination of high-paced platforming action and the intense blasting action of legendary Sega shooter Rez certainly sounds like an interesting mix, so be sure to come back tomorrow for our complete The Gunstringer interview, in which Muehl discusses game mechanics, how to fire without a trigger and quesadillas. Don't miss it.