When the sun sets in the west, you would think the day’s done right? Nope, that’s when the work picks up in Flying Wild Hog’s game, Evil West. A big thank you to Focus Home and Flying Wild Hog for the reviewing opportunity!
Evil West takes place in an alternative 19th-century timeline where players take on the role of Jesse Rentier, a vampire hunter with the secretive Rentier Institute that hunts down the vampire threat in the US. Someone behind the scene among the vampires wants to rage all-out war against humans and attacked the Rentier Institute head-on, forcing Jesse to take on the role of the organization’s leader and rebuild the institute.
Now onto the game itself! The controls are easy to learn and adapt to. When it comes to sound, the voice acting, ambient sounds, and music are all good but the mixing should be tweaked as even though I lowered the volume on everything else and raised the dialogue volume, it’s still a bit hard to hear anyone speaking clearly. There’s also an issue with sound effects looping for the enemy type called The Gaster that’s quite loud and VERY ANNOYING. An issue I had with the dialogue may sound odd coming from me but here I go, I have a mouth like a sailor (hard to believe by the way I write) but the amount of swearing in this game is a bit too much, it’s almost like the script was written by an angsty junior high kid. There are moments in the game where even I would drop a few choice words (that’s understandable) but in some of the regular dialogue, jeez, it took me back to study hall in high school.
The game’s art is quite bright and colorful, almost like a comic book, it may not be pretty but it surely fits with the game’s aesthetic. I do love the design of the enemies though, especially the ones with large leeches on them, I found that touch to be insanely awesome!
The gameplay is really fun! You can use melee attacks on the enemies using your gauntlet, or use three different types of firearms. As you fight you can earn points to level up Jesse and unlock perks for your weapons and gear. Jesse can also find Bucks (money) in the levels that can be used to upgrade weapons and equipment. I really enjoy the freedom to play how I want and enjoy the hacking and slashing!
Overall Evil West is a fun game to play and there’s even the option to go co-op with a friend if you don’t want to hunt vampires alone in the old west. I think what the game lacks in polish is made up for in originality, voice acting, and replayability. On a scale of 1-10, I give Evil West an 8.5 with sound issues affecting the overall score.
Evil West is out now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
