Evil West (Multi)
By: Flying Wild Hogs
NOT about Fred, the Evil West here is of the cowboy variety, and while Hollywood has been seasoning Westerns with horror for decades with the likes of Tremors and Bone Tomahawk, it wasn't until 2005's Darkwatch that videogames got in on the act.
Poor sales and a canned sequel forced the genre onto a dusty trail from which it's only now entering town again. Cue a minor key on the honky-tonk...
Evil West's gruff n' gory gunslinging offers even more rootin' and tootin' as you do good taking out the bad and the ugly in a vampire-tinged cowboy romp that has cult written all over it.
Following the trigger-happy adventures of Jesse Rentier, agent of a top-secret government agency, players prowl the frontier in search of a new breed of bloodsucker planning to wage war against mankind.
Cue 10-odd hours of classic third-person action as you take your six-shooter to vampire varmints in solo or co-op action – and you'll be glad of the back-up when things get hairy.
While this isn't the developers' first rodeo, it's certainly their most ambitious, and Evil West's production values shine - especially in its 4K quality mode, which adds some ranch dressing to the visuals (even if the frame rate can be as rough as Clint Eastwood's backside).
Yet despite the visual swag, there's something terribly old-fashioned about Evil West. From a monumentally silly plot and stock badass lead (at one point Jesse yells "I'm a field agent, not a paper pusher") to clunky shifts from gameplay to cutscene, this is linear adventuring from a bygone age.
And it's all the better for it. With no sprawling open world, collecting or crafting, Evil West invites player to simply jump in and shoot things, with baddies ranging from human familiars, freshly made sanguisuges (not sausages) and full-blown monsters – all of which can be taken out with a variety of guns or Jesse's electricity-spurting gauntlet. One for those who like to shoot first and ask questions later, Evil West resurrects a formula lost when action games got too big for their cowskins – yet while its vibe is pleasingly old-school, moseying from one horde to the next may bore the Stetsons off gamers hankering for something more cerebral.
Evil West's horror take on the American frontier is an unapologetic throwback to the third-person blasters of the PS3 days, with gruff characters and lashings of gore as you dish out cowboy justice to supernatural types. If you're bored of open-world bloat, go West...
