It’s been a weird year for the West with vampires, werewolves, and other creepy crawlies expanding further into the world of outlaws and cowboys. With Evil West, developer Flying Hog Wild adds a new monster to the mix, bureaucrats. Trading in their usual legal forms and red tape for lightning-fueled gauntlets and boomsticks, players will find themselves in a fast-paced action game that marries modern third person combat with level design and mechanics reminiscent of games from the Xbox 360/PS3 era. The resulting blend creates a fun combat experience but will ultimately leave you wanting more out of your westward expansion.
Players fight off vampiric threats to the United States as bureaucratic Vampire Hunter, Jesse Rentier. After taking out an outlaw vampire, things take a personal turn when the secret organization Rentier works for is decimated in retaliation by a rogue vampire faction. Injured in the attack is Rentier’s superior (and father), which fuels the game’s revenge tale. There’s nothing groundbreaking on the revenge end. The voice acting here is great, in spite of the cheesy things these characters are saying. I appreciate the themes that explore technological advancements and groups left behind in those moments of societal progression. I just wish there were a few more chances to explore those themes. They stood out and made these vampire baddies feel like a little more than just bloodthirsty monsters.
The combat of Evil West is the star of the show. It’s fast, it’s fun, and you can approach it how you see fit. The right bumper deals out melee attacks, while the left bumper dishes out electric based attacks that stun enemies. There are also a handful of guns which vary from a pistol you can blind fire, a rifle and a crossbow which serve as your main firearms, and a flamethrower that can melt through hordes of enemies. Going in, I expected to find myself leaning one way in combat, but to my surprise I never really counted on one attack or combo to get me through fights. There’s a progression system as well as perk upgrades, but you’re never locked into the skills you spend your bucks and perk points on. A workstation in the hub area allows you to reset all progressions and perks between levels, giving you the ability to rebuild Rentier’s skill to your heart’s content.
There is some enemy variety in Evil West and the game thankfully includes a lore menu for you to learn more about foes you’ve encountered. Some enemy types do seem like reskins though. For example, the blunt weapon wielding Jenu Giants and the Zealots attack in a lot of the same manors. Earlier levels in the game present some enemies as mini bosses, with those enemies later returning in bigger fights with more baddies. It’s a design choice that has never been my personal favorite but is one that makes sense development wise. The blends of enemies thrown at you keep fights challenging throughout and require full use of your arsenal. The few bosses you fight are challenging and require some thinking that goes beyond mashing the right bumper.
If there’s an issue with combat, it’s the camera in the heat of the battle. Much like the recent God of War games, the camera is pretty close to Rentier, so when you’re surrounded by enemies it’s nearly impossible for you to see everything going on around you. This is made worse with bigger enemies taking up a good chunk of real estate on screen. On a few frustrating occasions, I found myself pinned in a corner or stuck on an object or wall. The camera does pull out for some larger boss fights, I just wish that were an option for fights with multiple ‘mini-boss’ enemies and larger hordes. Keeping the camera from being a total deal breaker is your ability to zip between enemies and pull them in from across the room. This can still be messy though. In a few specific encounters, I found myself clipping through the ground, unable to move, forced to either try and win a big fight with just my guns or restart the encounter completely.
Between combat, you’ll explore locations looking for ‘bucks’, perk pickups, and other collectibles. Across the 10+ hour campaign, you’ll explore war torn oil fields, deadly swamps, and abandoned factories. These levels look amazing. Like stop and take a screenshot, amazing. I wish I could share similar sentiments about the level design. Levels break down into cycles of walking around, picking up collectibles, watching story moments, and fighting enemies. Repeating that loop can start to feel repetitive. The combat is fun, but what you’re doing in between is just walking to the next combat area, occasionally taking on a puzzle that involves shooting something or moving a platform.
This is made worse by some levels’ maze-like layouts which are easy to get lost in. Especially when you’re wandering a swamp, looking for where to go, just to discover there was a chain you passed under four times that you needed to shoot down to progress. It’s frustrating, cause the combat is great, I just wish there was a little more to break up the action between the campaign’s big action set-pieces. You can play through the campaign with a friend, but this feature seems more like a last-minute tack on, and less like a fully realized game mode. Both players play as Rentier and if you thought things were crowded in single player, they don’t get much better adding a buddy to the mix.
Evil West is an action-adventure game that nails the action, while whiffing on the adventure. The variety of weapons and skills keep the combat fresh as you chain your way through vampire hordes. The linear levels are a nice change-up from the icon-covered world maps we’ve grown accustomed to but are not enough to keep things from feeling repetitive. It’s a reminder of the limitations from a console era well behind us, but amidst those limitations it shows us there is still some fun to be had.
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