Come on down to the slaughter barn.
God I love a good werewolf.
Werewolves, I propose, are a chance for game designers to be unreasonable.
Werewolves do not wait politely to attack.
They do not have rail guns that need powering up.
Instead, werewolves come out of nowhere and they’re suddenly right up close.
They do not acknowledge your personal space.
Werewolves are a flurry of terrifying slashes of the claws, they are berzerk energy and long health bars.
Werewolves are jerks and we love them for it.
When you first meet werewolves they’re absolutely terrifying.
Each one is a boss fight in itself.
Hope I don’t see any more of them, pardner!
But you do, you do see more of them, pardner.
They come in packs.
They come alongside other enemies.
They come alongside bosses.
And yet, by the end of the game you’re knocking them aside.
Popping their heads off and splattering their bodies.
This is Evil West: it’s got that great Double-A treat, the ludicrous power curve.
By the end of the game you’re pretty much a god.
And gods really give game designers a chance to be unreasonable.
Let’s get the plot out of the way.
That’s the plot.
You play part of a team who takes these beasts and shows them who’s who.
It gets a bit more complicated, but not too complicated.
Plot is fuel here, propulsion that drives you to greater slaughter.
you might launch them into the air and cannonball them into spikes, into each other.
It’s not just punching.
That could be the tagline for Evil West really.
The West is Evil, right, but you don’t just punch it.
You have a six-shooter, and a rifle for distant enemies.
No ammo to collect, all this stuff works on cool-downs.
And it can all be tricked out with electricity.
Ditto the special weapons like flame-throwers and a crossbow and other stuff I won’t spoil.
No ammo, just time it with the cool-downs.
Meanwhile keep an eye on your health and your electrical power.
Enemies repeat readily but that doesn’t matter because they’re mostly glorious.
Every throw in of enemy from 2011 is here and waiting to embrace you.
The guys that run at you and explode.
The guys that burrow and erupt from the ground.
The shield guys you have to flank.
The guys that hover in the sky and then crash to earth now and then.
At times, it’s almost Robotron.
It’s nothing headscratchy, just a perfect cleanser to get you ready for the next brawl.
Whisper it: there’s a hub, and it’s lovely.
It is, in other words, a really beautifully made video game.
And it delivers on its simple pleasures with beauty and variety.
But otherwise Evil West is wonderfully brutal and charming and luminously old fashioned.
It’s werewolves up the wazoo.
And I had a brilliant time.
