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Evil West is now out, and Oh boy, what a rush it is at times!
Flying Wild Hog – a Polish developer known for the rebooted Shadow Warrior games and their earlier Hard Reset – have graced us with a Weird West-style tale about vampires vs cowboys….what’s not to like?!
You think Western games, and what instantly pops up are the Red Dead and the Call of Juarez series (not you Cartel – you were a stain on the series!). It makes a nice change to be playing a badass cowboy taking on a supernatural threat. It is just out and out fun much like the Cowboys Vs Aliens movie, leave your brain at the door and grab some popcorn!
So you have an evil pure bred younger vampire Felicity, who kinda reminds me of Alma in the F.E.A.R. games, running the show causing chaos in the Wild West. It is up to you and your cohorts of the Rentier Institute to sort out what is going on and stop the threat.
Evil West is not an open world game which makes a change from what we get in a lot of AAA games, now. You are getting a linear path with the storytelling, level design and which unlocks the further you venture into the story. It’s a pure out-and-out action game from start to finish, and it wears this on it’s sleeve with style. It is easy to compare to titles such as Devil May Cry without the fixed camera angles, or Bulletstorm with it’s over the top weapons, loud and crazy enemies and environmental hazards.
The gameplay is split into levels with in-engine cutscenes between them, and you can have a wander round the area afterwards, talking to characters and getting info on the next mission, as well as finding any collectibles scattered about. The levels, themselves, are structured in a way which will see you heading down paths and between canyons that will have a few smaller areas split off from them, that usually has chests or money to find. The areas generally have no enemies, so you can take in the sights while you explore. Your path is highlighted with glowing chains and ropes, so you always know your way forwards through a level.
These paths you travel always open out into an arena. Occasionally you may see some enemies on the other side of a small barrier, but you cannot shoot at them and damage them from other side of the barrier. Here is where the excellent combat system comes into play!
The combat has a really cool ebb and flow to it, dodging out the way of enemy attacks and countering with your fists or a weapon. Primarily your fists and gauntlet are what you will be using. The electric gauntlet as an example, once unlocked early in the game can be used to block attacks which require proper timing and, if done right, stuns enemies or you can pull an enemy towards you to give them a flurry of blows much like the electric leash on Bulletstorm. You’ll also notice stacked TNT crates and spiked columns dotted around the arena edges. The TNT blocks are quite self-explanatory, and shooting them causes a large explosion, so if you manage to get a group of enemies close, then dodge-roll out the way and shoot them, and you are golden.
The spike columns serve one purpose only! This is a move called the cannonball, where you uppercut an enemy into the air, and then punch them into the spikes. Each of these items are a one-time use, so great for taking out some of the larger, faster enemies like werewolves to thin numbers. Arenas usually have a large selection of enemies from heavies or bosses, so just standard enemy types. During boss fights, you will get these easier enemies to take out to refill health, but in most arenas they are alongside larger heavy type enemies, hence crowd control is a must. Thankfully, you do unlock a jumping ground pound area of attack, which can stun enemies or even finish off others, and this is really handy for getting out the way of being surrounded.
Additionally alongside your trusty six-shooter, you will unlock a shotgun which is great for damaging shielded enemies and there is also a rifle early on which is great for flying enemies. Later on, you’ll also unlock a flamethrower, crossbow and Gatling gun making for more chaos and mixing up combat again.
As you play you will also level up, the money you find can to be used to buy new skills which also require skills points. You’ll unlock extra melee attacks as well as new attacks for guns, like uppercutting an enemy into the air and finishing them off with the shotgun, or a forwards-jumping leap attack to cross larger areas. There are a good few skills and upgrades to suit play styles, so if you don’t want to be in the thick of melee combat, then upgrading your guns can be a viable option.
Visually, the game character’s style very much reminds me of the way the characters look in Dishonored from Arkane Software. The various locations are nicely varied, from level to level, and there is a good selection of enemies for you to get through, from the low-level familiars, which are essentially cowboy ghouls that can attack you in daylight, to the pure-bred vampires which look like giant bats when they transform.
Then there are huge tank-like mini bosses, each having their own way of being taken down, plus characteristics, one with a huge spiked shield that likes to charge you, or another that burrows under the ground and pops up in front of you. Occasionally, you will get one of these mid-level, or one of the pure-bred that looks like a giant bat. If you get the latter mid-level, then you will get one of the huge tanks at the end as a rule of thumb.
Evil West takes around 10-15 hours to get through. The longer time is if you explore the levels as much as possible, and deaths where a boss or mobbed arena battle has got the best of you. There is also a Co-Op mode where you and a friends can play through the levels if you so wish.
Flying Wild Hog have created an excellent new IP with this game. It’s great to just have a fun out-and-out action game, taking you down a driven path instead of a huge open-world map with icons dotted everywhere that requires many hours to see even half of it. In fact, there’s much to love about Evil West, and I highly recommend it to everyone.
A big thanks to our friends at Focus Entertainment and Flying Wild Hog for supplying us with the review code.
Evil West is out now on Xbox Series X, PS5, PS4 and PC.
Important info:
- Developer: Focus Entertainment / Flying Wild Hog
- Publisher: Focus Entertainment / Flying Wild Hog
- Players: Single-player and Co-Op
GRAPHICS
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ENJOYMENT8
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8OVERALL 8 
Retro at heart and lover of all things ’80s, especially the computers, the music and the awesome movies and TV shows! Crazy huge retro gaming collection spanning the ’80s and ’90s with hundreds of tapes, discs and carts for various machines on top of a 600+ strong Steam library that is ever-growing. No I am not a serial hoarder, just a dedicated retro gamer!