Evil West Review Undead Redemption
The Evil West asks a simple question: what would happen if cowboys fought vampires? It was thoughts like these that prompted Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford to green-light the film, and developer Flying Wild Hog has certainly come a long way since the wacky concept was born. The Wild West is set in an alternate version of the United States of the 1890s and is the wildest west ever. A familiar backdrop of revolving doors, rolling seaweed and abandoned gold mines is paired with Nikola Tesla-inspired electro-steampunk technology and a menagerie of ravenous hounds. The Evil West shines in the heat of battle, answering that initial question, but its strengths are often diminished by the dated design that surrounds it.
The story is a rather low-key case in which an organization of vampire hunters confronts an enemy vampire force threatening the continental United States. Jesse Rentier, the typical surly leading man with little emotion other than a slight indifference, is your shoe. His sometimes down-to-earth reaction to the absurd things around him is quite endearing, but that means I have to find his name before posting it here. There are sometimes interesting themes in the story; for example, one of the high-born vampires worries about humanity's ever-growing technology and the threat it poses to his own species, but those threads don't go anywhere. The One revolves around a cranky and misogynistic government official, but his appearance doesn't provide the satisfaction he deserves.
In many ways, the Evil West seems like a relic of the past. This is the kind of game you might have dreamed of playing in, say, 2010 or even earlier. This simplicity may have been something of a refreshment with so many modern games outperforming them, but it feels like rubbish. Combat is solid, blood-drinking and constantly reveling in heavy, satisfying action. Towards the end, you run into fatigue, both from overcrowding with enemies and from carrying loads, but that's the aspect that makes Evil West worth playing. The rest of the game is formulaic and incredibly boring, actively depleting your records as you move from one battlefield to another. I didn't always like Evil West, but I hope there will be a sequel to see if Flying Wild Hog can deliver on its promises to expand and improve.
