God, I love a good werewolf. I suggest that werewolves are an opportunity for game designers to be unreasonable. Werewolves do not politely wait to attack. They don’t wobble around like zombies, waving you blindly with their wrists instead of their hands. They don’t have railguns that need to be powered up. Instead, werewolves appeared out of nowhere, and they were suddenly within reach. They don’t recognize your personal space. A werewolf is a barrage of terrifying claw slashes, they’re berserk energy and long health bars. Werewolves are assholes, and we love them for that.
There’s a werewolf counterpart in Evil West, and I think they’ve gotten to the bottom of the beauty of this wild, silly, straight-up video game. It’s really simple. When you first meet werewolves, they are absolutely terrifying. They are unstoppable. Each one is a boss fight in itself. Wow! what is that? Hope I never see them again, man! But you saw it, and you did see more, man. They come in groups. They fight alongside other enemies. They come with the boss.
However, by the end of the game, you’ll have knocked them aside. repel them. Their heads fell and splashed all over their bodies. It’s the wicked western: it’s got great Double-A treats, a ridiculous power curve. By the end of the game, you’re almost a god. And God really gave game designers unreasonable opportunities.
Let’s get the plot out of the way. Wicked West. That’s the plot. It’s the old west, but out in the wild with monsters, shambling horrors and vampires and all that jazz. You play as part of a team that takes these beasts and shows them who’s who. It gets a little more complicated, but not too complicated. In this game, a zeppelin filled with dreadful drool-worthy nightmares crashes into the story’s equivalent of the White House. Plot is the fuel here, pushing you to even greater carnage.
It’s a third-person fighting game inspired by the recent God of War, but actually coming straight to you from 2011 or so. You’re big on the screen, you hit monsters with combos, and you can kick them to give you a little space. Then you can hit them with electricity and pull them toward you or you pull them toward you with an electric gizmo Volt. You can launch them into the air, and shoot them into spikes and smash into each other with cannonballs. You can tap the ground and vaporize them on the spot–all after you’re deep into the campaign and happily booting up, of course.
It’s not just punch holes. That might really be the catchphrase for the Wicked West. The West is evil, right, but you don’t just fight it. You have a six-shooter, and a rifle for dealing with enemies at a distance. There’s no ammo to collect, and all this stuff cools down. All this can be tricked with electricity. Ditto for special weapons like flamethrowers and crossbows and other stuff I won’t spoil. No ammo, just timers with cooldowns. Keep an eye on your health and power at the same time.
Enemies are easy to repeat, but that doesn’t matter since they’re mostly honorable. 2011 enemies of every type are here waiting to hug you. The ones that charge at you and explode. The guy who burrows and spews out of the ground. You have to flank the shield guys. The ones that hover in the sky and then crash down to Earth from time to time. All of these require tapping or blasting, and they all have weaknesses, glowing points that emit arcs of light and chime, encouraging you to deal massive damage or health drops to them with your rifle. Simple, predictable enemies that are gradually added throughout the campaign – this is one of those games where mini-bosses quickly blend into the general enemy camp – and come at you with new combinations, new arenas, and great for trying Your newest gadget. Sometimes, it’s almost Robotron.
what else? For starters, it’s surprisingly beautiful and lets you zip through several western scenarios: blue sky canyons, nasty haunted swamps, mines, mountains, icy ridges, and engineering. The carnage is broken up by traversal moments or puzzles, usually involving electricity or some carts. It’s nothing to be a headache for, just the perfect cleanser to get you ready for your next spat. Whisper: There’s a hub, and it’s cute. While you collect lore and upgrade cash — good upgrades, it’s always a challenge to choose between them — as you level up, you’ll gradually grow from someone who’s afraid of werewolves to one who barely notices their people.
In other words, this is a beautifully crafted video game. It knows what it is — the kind of game with a launcher, the kind where the protagonist has the line, “Never thought I’d blow up my own house!” It delivered simple fun in beautiful and varied ways. There’s two-player online co-op, which I haven’t tested yet, and I think consoles might stutter a bit, though I haven’t had any issues on PC. But otherwise, “Wicked West” is brutal, charming and radiant. It’s a bullet storm. It’s a painkiller. This is werewolf talking nonsense. I had a great time.
