Evil West PS5 Review 7/10 “A Fun, Old-School Shooter” 👹 @PlayEvilWest @transvaalgf #IndieGame #GameDev

I’ve had my eye on Evil West for some time, it had made a lot of lists in regard to ‘the best upcoming games of 2022’, I had seen gameplay and thought ‘this looks fun’ - which is pretty much how I would sum up the game, it’s really fun. It does not take itself very seriously and wears its heart completely on its sleeve, ‘this is absolute nonsense… but let’s have some fun on the way!’.

I use nonsense, not in a derogatory way but in a loving way, the official description states ‘Rise up to become a Wild West Superhero, eradicate the vampire threat, and save the United States!”. After that sentence, you know you are in B-movie schlock territory, and it’s great.

I loved how over-the-top everything is, every character is shouting their dialogue like the person that they are talking to is 40 meters away, it’s all Wild West bravado with only one or two characters engaging their indoor voices. I know it sounds like this could be very irritating, but its complete commitment to not taking itself seriously is very endearing.

The main hero in this story is Jesse Rentier, a vampire hunter for the Rentier Institute, his father runs the organization and sends operatives out to suppress the vampire uprising. As Jesse investigates, he finds a fiendish plot that the vampires have concocted to overthrow the US government and spread vampirism throughout the whole of the United States. Along the way you meet a colourful cast of characters to help you stop the uprising, all had a level of charm, and I had a few laughs at some of the back-and-forth banter.

The crux of Evil West is punching hordes of fanged menaces in the face as hard as humanly possible, and if you fancy some variety - you can shoot them in the face with a number of different guns, that’s it, that’s the main gameplay summed up nicely.

You turn up in an area, and then monsters that are somewhat averse to garlic also turn up, and you hit (or gun) them down before moving on to the next area, where more monsters turn up (this time, maybe it’s a creature that really enjoys a full moon?), you punch it in the face - onto the next level.

Repetitive?

Yes, but it’s so enjoyable! Combat is such a joy that even after the umpteenth horde, I was still having fun. The progression through the game offers a variety of new weapons and abilities and they were all exciting to get, whether it was electrifying your bullets, or an improved combo of punches - they were all tempting, and it did take time to make a choice. 

I enjoyed the level variety, from abandoned mines to a snowy mountains, to Wild West towns, you always felt like you were on the move. Enemy variety isn’t necessarily a huge problem, but you do fight a lot of the same enemy types, and towards the end of the game repetition does take hold, luckily, the 11-hour completion time feels right.

Technical problems are sadly what dent the experience. Frame rate drops were a problem - not a deal breaker, but noticeable. I also had a problem with the sound, when one enemy dies, it makes a hissing noise, and on one level the noise became amplified and would not go away. I had to rush to the next checkpoint and quit the game to get it to stop. Also, whilst playing online cooperatively, we got to level ten and our data became corrupt - and we could no longer carry on.