REVIEW - Evil West is a crunchy brawler that revels in its excess
Sunny delight.
By Jonathan Garrett
21/10/22
Reviewed on Xbox Series X.
Review copy provided by Focus Entertainment.
The inherent joy of a game like Evil West is that it doesn’t attempt to convince us that it’s something more than the sum of its parts. When distilled into a simplistic comparison, Flying Wild Hog have essentially made a vampiric God of War; the natural flow to melee combat and the juxtaposition of familiar and alternative locations grants Evil West a curious identity.
The gruff demeanour of the lead characters is contrasted with some exceptionally varied enemy design. Most levels feature a similar structure, and yet you’re constantly introduced to new mechanics and foes. Just when I thought I’d settled into a familiar rhythm, a wave based survival section, light puzzle elements, or an entirely bonkers boss is thrown my way to keep things moving forward.
Take the combat, for example. I started off initially concerned, as it seemed to be extremely simplistic to the point of boredom. But before you know it, you’re unlocking all kinds of combo-tastic moves; shout out to the electric gauntlet grapple which pulls in enemies and lets you finish with ease. The shotgun too, which you only get after the first few chapters, is a wonderfully potent finisher. I really enjoyed how effortless it was to chain together ranged attacks from a revolver or rifle, with melee stunners and heavier blows. The environmental and execution takedowns also add welcome variety.
Much has been made of the limited performance options on modern console hardware, and to be fair, while the 60fps is pretty stable, the resolution hit is noticeable. That being said, the various set piece moments elevate Evil West beyond your typical AA budget; there’s a real attempt here to make this feel cohesive and polished. Transitions between gameplay and committed voice acting certainly helps. Cutscenes in particular are well directed and edited, even if the writing will sometimes irk you with its dude-bro sensibilities.
A fair critique must also acknowledge the over reliance on strictly linear traversal. There are occasional opportunities to dig around for secrets, but it’s a mostly rigid path and it feels claustrophobic as a result. It doesn’t help that despite some admirable attempts to mask loading screens, some areas feel disjointed. There’s far too many “vault over this gap or climb this ledge” markers, all with the same identifying symbol, and the animations in these instances also come across a tad stiff.
But lets not take anything away from the fact that Evil West absolutely delivers a raucous action brawler, as advertised. It plays exactly how it looks, which is actually a compliment to some very smart marketing and proof that Focus Entertainment’s desire to push for new IP is serving them very well indeed.
Punching things is fun.
WORTH IT?
At the bottom of every game review, we ask the question: Worth it? And the answer is either “Yeah!” or “Nah”, followed by a comment that sums up how we feel. In order to provide more information, we also have “And” or “But”, which follows up our rating with further clarification, additional context for a game we love, or perhaps a redeeming quality for a game we didn’t like.
YEAH!
Evil West is a frenetic and unapologetically brash action brawler that will keep you hooked.
AND
It has a keen understanding of its own identity, and knows exactly what it’s striving to be.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
