#571: Evil West
Vampire-punching stylish action feels like a modern PS2 game in a good way
Initial release: November 22, 2022
Platform: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Developer: Flying Wild Hog
A long while back I reviewed a PlayStation 2 game called Darkwatch. The premise was simple: cowboys versus vampires. The execution was fantastically juvenile, but the gameplay was pretty fun. The game felt like the intended start to a multimedia franchise that never took off. Well, sixteen years after that game’s release, Flying Wild Hog — they of the successful Shadow Warrior reboot — dropped a game with a very similar premise, almost the exact same actually, on us. The only real difference is a matter of perspective. Where Darkwatch was an unabashed Halo clone, we instead get to punch (and shoot, and blow up) the shit out of vampires (and vampire werewolves, and giant leech zombies, etc.) in a Gears of War-esque stylish action puncher, creatively titled Evil West.
Evil West offers no pretensions. From modernist dialogue full of four letter words that doesn’t even try to mimic the way late 19th century Americans spoke, to gore-soaked levels arranged in an arena-and-tunnel fashion, to a hulking, generically-grizzled protagonist, it’s every bit the kind of wonderfully moronic gorefest you expect from an industry fed a heavy diet of boomer shooters and Devil May Cry clones.
The story and gameplay are both pretty straightforward. You play as Jesse Rentier, heir to the Rentier Institute, a federally-funded monster-hunting organization founded in the early 19th century and run by Jesse’s father William, who intends for Jesse to retire from the field and take over William’s desk job. Jesse has no intention of doing so, feeling his skills are best served punching vampires. But it seems that a few vampires see the steady development of technology as a threat, and — clearly influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution — have adopted the credo “adapt or die.” To that end they’ve used eldritch science to field a vast army of cannon-fodder vampires and thralls, something that the leading minds of vampire society are uncomfortable with (though that little plot thread never goes anywhere, likely intended for expansion in a sequel.) When a vampire army storms the Rentier Institute’s southern headquarters, it’s up to Jesse to find a way to stop the army and topple its leadership. And he’ll do that by punching vampires, shooting vampires, blowing vampires up, setting vampires on fire, and any number of other ways to eliminate the ever-growing army of the undead. He’s armed with a big steampunk gauntlet that’s basically a Power Fist from Fallout, all your classic western guns like a souped-up Winchester, plus a few other gadgets. Over the course of the game, you’ll be able to find and collect money (helpfully referred to as proper-noun “Bucks”) with which you can upgrade your gear. You’ll also collect experience, each level granting you a perk point that you can use to fill out a multi-tiered skill tree that gradually unlocks as you level up. So you’ll get benefits such as more moves (I’m a big fan of being able to uppercut something into the air then grab it with the “Zapper” (basically a taser gauntlet) and slam it down into the ground.) There are also treasure chests you can find that will confer more money, extra perk points and even new skills to unlock, as well as cosmetic items that do nothing for gameplay and don’t even show up in the cutscenes but are there nonetheless if you think the default costume is too damn red.
(Seriously, the costume is silly. The whole character design is silly. If Darkwatch was basically like a Todd MacFarlane comic book, Evil West feels more Rob Liefeld, and I‘m only being half-mean with that.)
Evil West is a fun time. The combat is fast and frenetic, with some seriously dangerous enemy mixes that force you to decide what to prioritize. The unique bosses — of which there are only a few — are a blast to fight. The emphasis of third-person melee feels like an interesting move for Flying Wild Hog, who up until now had only made first person shooter games in the vein of Painkiller (in fact up until the other day I thought that Flying Wild Hog were a spinoff from People Can Fly, but as far as I can tell there is no real link beyond both being Polish.) The various weapons you get are all fun to use, though obviously your fist will do most of the work as the rest are situational and/or have cooldowns. In a very real way, it does feel like the best of the mid-to-late PlayStation 2 or early PlayStation 3 era, though that comes with similar kinds of irritating design issues such as several points of no return (though the game helpfully shows you which little obstacles you navigate are one-way) which means that items are thereby permanently missable — this is one of the most irritating design tropes from games from around the turn of the Tens and Evil West is built around it.
I had a good time with Evil West, as beautifully insipid as it was. I suppose on some level it’s fun to look at it as a do-over for Darkwatch: same premise, same plot, same goofy comic book vibe that doesn’t take itself too seriously, just a lot of fun. Really, does it even need a different title?
