Evil West is a video game first and foremost. Nowadays people tend to say that in a derogatory way, but I mean it with as much affection as I possibly can. Let's be honest, not every game has to be a major thought provoking art-piece or a genre-bending defining experience to be good, sometimes all you really want is an action packed adrenaline fueled thrill ride where your main objective is simply "fight and kill all the bad guys" and that is exactly what Evil West excels at, providing a good old classic linear action game experience that doesn't try to be anything more than what it is. A badass vampire hunting cowboy kicking a bunch of vampire ass and looking cool while doing it.
Evil West takes place in a steampunk style alternate historical setting of late 1800s USA following Jesse Rentier the heir to the Rentier Institute, a secret government organization dedicated to eradicating all evil creatures of the night (Imagine the Belmont clan if they were cowboys and funded by the government instead of the church). One day a rival vampire clan attacks the Rentier Institute both crippling the organization and putting Jesse's father in critical condition. Now Jesse is on a quest for revenge and to save his father's life.
I'll be honest, the narrative of Evil West is nothing amazing, it is full of cliches and twists you'll see coming a mile away, it's far from a compelling story, but that doesn't stop it from still being a super fun and entertaining one thanks to how over-the-top it is with incredible action set-pieces, visually stunning environments and a solid cast of eccentric characters Jesse meets on his journey who all have strong voice acting performances backing them. Jesse himself is also a very good protagonist who is the perfect blend of gruff badass and wise-cracking smartass. The whole game plays out like a campy edgy action movie from the 2000s giving me major vibes of Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing or maybe Priest. My only complaint is I found the ending to be a bit lackluster.
Now like I said, the story while entertaining is far from the selling point. This is not an overly cinematic game only having about 1 and a half hours of cut-scenes across its 15 hour campaign. Evil West is part of a dying breed being a hyper linear action game which is split up into a mission based structure and through those missions there are a handful of secrets to discover mostly to give more context into the world and lore, but also caches of money for weapons upgrades. However exploration is extremely limited and there are even very few puzzles spread out in the game so the bulk of your gameplay time is going to come solely from the combat in which you punch and shoot hordes of vampires in many stylish ways.
The combat feels like the devs took the base of God of War 2018 with the over-the-shoulder camera perspective and focus on a single melee weapon (Hell, some of the animations themselves even feel copy and pasted from GoW 2018 lol), but then they expanded it to incentivize chaining together stylish combos in a DMC-like manner. Your primary weapon is Jesse's vampire slaying electricity powered gauntlet and you'll be doing a lot of punching as this is much more of a melee focused combat system than a shooter (It just has lots of guns for secondary weapons) so in the early hours it might even feel a little repetitive, but as you play more the game slowly starts to naturally open up more as you level up with experience and get perk points which you can invest in the skill tree to unlock an arsenal of secondary weapons and powers for Jesse to use like a revolver, a rifle, a shotgun, grenades, an electric shockwave, a whip like grapple, a tornado (Yep, you read that right) and even a minigun among others. By the end of the game you have so many tools at your disposal to cause as much damage and carnage possible that the combat never gets boring or stale and you might even want to jump right into NG+ to experience it all again on a harder difficulty with all your powers unlocked from the start.
Evil West is a nostalgic throwback to a bygone era in the best way possible, feeling like a lost gem of the 360/PS3 days. A no frills attached linear action game that focuses first and foremost on giving the player a satisfyingly rich combat system that is fast, fluid and fun alongside waves of vampires to test their combat skills on. While the narrative itself is nothing to write home about, it at least does a good job of being thoroughly entertaining with great action packed cut-scenes, some memorable characters and visually striking locations thanks to a fantastic art style. Evil West might seem dated to some and it certainly won't be for everyone, but if you're like me and often hunger for that simpler time of gaming then much like blood to a vampire, Evil West will help satiate that thirst for those good old days.
Evil West takes place in a steampunk style alternate historical setting of late 1800s USA following Jesse Rentier the heir to the Rentier Institute, a secret government organization dedicated to eradicating all evil creatures of the night (Imagine the Belmont clan if they were cowboys and funded by the government instead of the church). One day a rival vampire clan attacks the Rentier Institute both crippling the organization and putting Jesse's father in critical condition. Now Jesse is on a quest for revenge and to save his father's life.
I'll be honest, the narrative of Evil West is nothing amazing, it is full of cliches and twists you'll see coming a mile away, it's far from a compelling story, but that doesn't stop it from still being a super fun and entertaining one thanks to how over-the-top it is with incredible action set-pieces, visually stunning environments and a solid cast of eccentric characters Jesse meets on his journey who all have strong voice acting performances backing them. Jesse himself is also a very good protagonist who is the perfect blend of gruff badass and wise-cracking smartass. The whole game plays out like a campy edgy action movie from the 2000s giving me major vibes of Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing or maybe Priest. My only complaint is I found the ending to be a bit lackluster.
Now like I said, the story while entertaining is far from the selling point. This is not an overly cinematic game only having about 1 and a half hours of cut-scenes across its 15 hour campaign. Evil West is part of a dying breed being a hyper linear action game which is split up into a mission based structure and through those missions there are a handful of secrets to discover mostly to give more context into the world and lore, but also caches of money for weapons upgrades. However exploration is extremely limited and there are even very few puzzles spread out in the game so the bulk of your gameplay time is going to come solely from the combat in which you punch and shoot hordes of vampires in many stylish ways.
The combat feels like the devs took the base of God of War 2018 with the over-the-shoulder camera perspective and focus on a single melee weapon (Hell, some of the animations themselves even feel copy and pasted from GoW 2018 lol), but then they expanded it to incentivize chaining together stylish combos in a DMC-like manner. Your primary weapon is Jesse's vampire slaying electricity powered gauntlet and you'll be doing a lot of punching as this is much more of a melee focused combat system than a shooter (It just has lots of guns for secondary weapons) so in the early hours it might even feel a little repetitive, but as you play more the game slowly starts to naturally open up more as you level up with experience and get perk points which you can invest in the skill tree to unlock an arsenal of secondary weapons and powers for Jesse to use like a revolver, a rifle, a shotgun, grenades, an electric shockwave, a whip like grapple, a tornado (Yep, you read that right) and even a minigun among others. By the end of the game you have so many tools at your disposal to cause as much damage and carnage possible that the combat never gets boring or stale and you might even want to jump right into NG+ to experience it all again on a harder difficulty with all your powers unlocked from the start.
Evil West is a nostalgic throwback to a bygone era in the best way possible, feeling like a lost gem of the 360/PS3 days. A no frills attached linear action game that focuses first and foremost on giving the player a satisfyingly rich combat system that is fast, fluid and fun alongside waves of vampires to test their combat skills on. While the narrative itself is nothing to write home about, it at least does a good job of being thoroughly entertaining with great action packed cut-scenes, some memorable characters and visually striking locations thanks to a fantastic art style. Evil West might seem dated to some and it certainly won't be for everyone, but if you're like me and often hunger for that simpler time of gaming then much like blood to a vampire, Evil West will help satiate that thirst for those good old days.