Game #1308: Evil West

 As opposed to the Good East and the Neutral North. 

 Coming straight outta Gungrave Gore.... Evil West was the game I wished Gungrave was. It's a third-person character-action styled game with an emphasis on guns, and it's so GOOD. It's also, thematically and aestheticall, the game Order 1861 and Damnation wished they were.

 The game is set in the wild west era of cowboys, but in a world were zombie-like-vampires called ticks exist, and so humanity had to learn to use the power of electricity and powder to create weapons capable of destroying these baddies. You play as a generic 80's styled gruff macho hero who is so forgettable I can't even remember his name, and his design is too busy to be very memorable. But hey, the good news is... the art-style is, overall, pretty neat, and EVERYONE in the supporting cast has either a colorful design or an interesting personality, the only character that is the exception is the main character, funnily enough. The plot is entirely too predictable, but it gets the job done in game like this.

 Gameplay is where it's at, you get a generic 4-5 melee hit combo with R1, but you can hold down R1 at any moment to pop enemies into the air and try to juggle them. If an enemy glows red you can interrupt them by kicking them, with R3, or you can dodge out of the way with X. You can also parry attacks with L1, with a very generous window of opportunity. All your guns run on cooldown instead of bullets. R2 is used for your revolver, holding down L2 will let you use your more precise weapons, like the crossbow or the rifle, Square uses your shotgun, and you'll also get dynamite, a flamethrower and a minigun as you advance through the game. There are only two ways to heal, using the healing skill, which has the longest cooldown amongst your abilities, or by executing enemies that are shining yellow. Naturally, as with any other game like this one, you get a super mode with L1+R1 when the electricity gauge has enough charges. Oh! And I almost forgot about the electric gauntlet, which you can use to draw enemies towards you or propel yourself towards an enemy.

 The gameplay is a total blast, as you juggle both enemies and your skills to defeat them. Many enemies are introduced as bosses... but then return as common enemies, and the game LOVES pairing ex-bosses together to challenge you. Heck, the bosses themselves usually spawn weaker enemies when they are running low on health! The game's difficulty was quite appropriate on Normal, I died a few times, but came back stronger and more knowledgeable of the enemy types I was dealing with in that encounter, so it evened out. It's a very fun game, your weapons are fun to use and managing your resources felt satisfying. Most of the time the framerate held up, but I did notice that the framerate dips started getting more frequent in the latter parts of the game, but I wouldn't say it got in the way of my enjoyment of the game.

 There weren't many puzzles in the game, but exploring is rewarded with money, white color outfit pieces and, more rarely, upgrades(That you then have to buy). Money is used to upgrade your weapons. Most upgrades are more than basic damage upgrades, as they tend to add functionality to your weapons. For instance, while one of the rifles upgrades IS a damage upgrade, another one immediately restores bullets that hit a weak point, and the other one turns it into an electricity gun, with shots that go through enemies. On the other hand, defeating enemies grant you XP, and with every level up you are granted a skill point that you can spend on another set of abilities.

 Sadly, the game has a few too many glitches. There are a ton of small graphical glitches here and there, particularly when it comes to physics-based objects, such as cloth or chains. Sometimes it has issues loading assets, so you may get into an empty room as it slowly loads the walls and objects. One time it got so bad that even if I reloaded the checkpoint it wouldn't load the room.... I had to completely exit the game in order to get it to load. At another point, after beating a boss the cutscene wouldn't trigger, so I had to reload the checkpoint and defeat the boss again. Not to mention the two hard-crashes I got to. Plus, the game is sometimes too dark to see what's around you.

 Evil West is a brilliant game, but as fun as it is... it's another painful reminder of how busted modern games are released nowadays by companies that aren't Nintendo. It wasn't as broken as God of War, but still, games shouldn't release with these many issues. Still, it's hard to stay angry at the game when the gameplay was so good.

 8.5