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Release Date: November 22, 2022
Developer: Flying Wild Hog
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Genres: Third-Person Shooter, Fighting, Action-Adventure
Mode: Multiplayer and Single Player
SPOILERS WARNING!
Introduction: When I bought Evil West originally it was for making gameplay videos for my youtube channels and writing content for this website. Originally, I didn’t think I would finish this game. Boy was I wrong. It’s pretty damn good.
Evil West has two great ideas ideas going for it. 1. Gameplay. 2. The length. If you’re into games with great gameplay that’s linear and on the shorter side length-wise you might enjoy Evil West. Keep reading. I’m not done.
Presentation: Have you ever watched movies like Gallowwalkers or Django? Evil West is a spaghetti western monster slaying vampire inspired videogame that’s all about the gameplay. There are games out in the ether that dominate with it’s gameplay presentation over all else. Evil West is that in a nutshell.
Granted, cutscene visuals were decent but everything else pretty much pales in comparison by a large margin to it’s gameplay. In other words, if you are expecting a good story with characters leave now. This game isn’t for you.
HOWEVER, if you love games like Gears of War, Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare or even Resident Evil. Evil West might be for you. To me, Evil West’s gameplay is as good as Gears of War or Red Dead Redemption. I’m talking purely from a gameplay perspective here.
Story: You play as Jesse Rentier of The Rentier Institute (I think it’s called that). Jesse’s father, William Rentier created the vampire hunting agency. The main antagonist Felicity is a little emo highborn vampire girl who’s hell bent on killing all humans for her great cleanse. Felicity wants to create a planet with only vampires.
Jesse Rentier along with Edgar Gravenor (his best friend), Emilia Blackwell and Agent Bloom along with a few others from the Rentier Institute are earth’s only hope. Three quarters into the story William Rentier becomes a vampire himself who Jesse has to kill in a bossfight.
Felicity wants to kill Grover Cleveland at the Chesterfield Opera house at the end of the game’s campaign. Evil West’s story and writing were terrible. I did enjoy some of the cheesy lines filled with cussing. Only thing missing were some fart jokes I guess. Do NOT play Evil West for it’s story. You been warned again.
Gameplay: Evil West’s gameplay is third person shooting and melee, no cover mechanics. You can acquire various weapons to upgrade by finding blueprints. The star of Evil West’s gameplay is the Rentier gauntlet which acts as a electrical Infinity gauntlet that’s capable of many combat attacks.
The gauntlet let’s Jesse perform dash melee attacks while electrocuting monsters. You can “suck in” enemies. You can also through energy activation unlock a powerful special attack that can level hordes of monsters within seconds.
Asides from the gauntlet Jessie has pistols for mid-range attacks, a crossbow and rifle for long-range timing shots. You also have a flamethrower, boonstick and gatling gun. Agent tools include a crucifix that stuns all enemies with light.
You can heal as you fight vampires and monsters. Enemy variety is really really strong in Evil West. Enemies are presented to the player in a gradual way through a plethora of mini-boss fights.
Overtime, these mini-bosses become run of the mill enemies including Highborn Vampires, Gasters, Zealots, Growors, Carion Husks, Leechers, Hive Crones and many more. Some enemies serve as tanks while others fly above serving as healers and buffers.
Some enemies put debuffs and or blind you while fighting. The actual gameplay mechanic and progression has a way of making you feel like a spaghetti western Superman halfway through the campaign. You can respec abilities at respec stations scattered in missions.
Combat is fair unless the camera messes up which can happen if you get mobbed into a corner. Evil West’s gameplay is the reason you play this game. Everything else is secondary. Some of the most fun linear focused crisp action third person shooting and melee I played in 2022 was in this game.
Visuals/Graphics: Evil West has a plethora of various locals including desert western towns, Icey snowy mountainsides, dank dark swamps and whatnot. It’s odd to me how some of these locals have decent visuals featuring okayish texture work while others look like hammered shit.
Evil West’s art direction does give you a spaghetti western atmosphere of a hundred years ago or so. The monsters and character designs while in cutscenes were good. Problem is, while playing everything takes a hit visually. I played this on my Xbox Series X. I believe the game was 4K 60. But hey, I’m no Digital Foundry lol.
Music/Sound: Voice acting was decent but the lines were horeshit spread on Ritz crackers. The latter is my line but it’s typical banter in Evil West. Jesse Rentier, Edgar Gravenor were standouts for me.
Music was okay. It would often kick up into strong mellow beats while fighting monsters. At times the sound would stop, stutter and become overlapped and or muffled while playing.
Final Verdict: Evil West has great gameplay but lacks in almost everything else. The gameplay was so damn good I easlly powered through the linear 10 hour so campaign. If you want to feel like the ultimate cowboy badass demon slayer I would pick up Evil Dead on a discount.
By the way this game does have multiplayer. I can’t comment because I didn’t try it. If you want to watch gameplay check out my Evil West Video Playlist Thank you for reading – Jason
Evil West: I gave this video game a high score due to it's gameplay which is superb in my opinion. – Jason
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