El Paso, Elsewhere

released on Sep 26, 2023

Fight werewolves and vampires in a reality-shifting motel. Dive through barricades to escape the grasp of evil puppets. Destroy the villain you loved. A new, third-person love letter to classic shooters. Neo-noir never looked so good.


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El Paso Elsewhere nails it's story, soundtrack, and tone with grace uncommon to an indie production. The game is a little too long, and the combat is a little stiff compared to it's obvious Max Payne inspirations, but it's quality shines through.

why does the rap music portion of the soundtrack mostly sound like the trying to fuck megatron song

El Paso is a different kind of boomer shooter. Instead of taking Doom, Quake or Half-Life as inspiration it is a Max Payne clone with a twist. Instead of shooting gangsters and drug addicts in New York the player is put into the role of a guy that fell in love with a vampire queen. Too bad for him that his ex-girlfriend now wants to end the world with a dark ritual. So he has to descend into 50 dream-like levels and fight vampires and werewolves to save humanity.

The graphics are simple, even worse than Max Payne 1, but the artstyle is on point. The bizarre color palette and surroundings make for a great atmosphere. Regular ingame-cutscenes with fantastic voice acting and heavy-hearted writing add to the strong vibes of the game just as much as the original hip-hop soundtrack.

The gameplay is simple. There are 50 levels to go through, each of them built as a small labyrinth where the player has to find keys, rescue hostages and escape to an elevator to the next level. Most of the levels are easy enough to navigate. Don’t expect to get lost often or lose track of where to go. Visual clues and light pillars in the distance are easy to follow.

The game is played in a third-person-perspective and heavily relies on using bullet-time mechanics to quickly shoot enemies before they hit the player. Lost health can be replenished by painkillers. Enemy variety is quite solid with good encounter design. There are also plenty of weapons to choose from and the game features a unique melee mechanic. Melee is limited by wooden stakes which can be replenished by destroying furniture.

I agree with everyone saying that the game can be repetitive. But I think the playtime of around eight hours is still completely fine. Just don’t expect to do that in two or three sittings. I preferred playing the game over several weeks in short bursts but enjoyed every minute of it.

played this through for the distinct locales and stylishly framed between-level-cutscenes

nails a couple of scenes relating to abusive relationships that could have easily whiffed entirely

ultimately, i'd much rather play stuff like this; that tries new stuff, even if it (imo) misses more than it lands

because gameplay is flat and fails to convince me that max payne / hotline miami (clear influences) works vs mainly melee enemies

a typical level (there are 50) consists of: enter room; slow down time; click enemy heads with pistols (rarely need to bother with anything else other than a few rifle shots) before it aggros/attacks; end level. something like this https://streamable.com/vjyhz5, with bosses also struggling to shake things up https://streamable.com/50g1lg

difficulty emerges in the form of placing enemies behind blind corners, where they'll chunk your health while you wrestle the janky reticle into working up close

i feel like there's a game half as long, taking itself half as seriously, that really gets at what made it's inspirations tick: each room is a puzzle, you have limited but meaningful tools - how will you solve this room?

I came for the Max Payne style gunplay. Stayed for the raw emotional story about abuse and the trauma that comes with it.

I'm incredibly impressed with what is for offer here. The writing, voice acting and visual design all adds a sort of texture to the story. A human tale of one miserable breakup between two people coated in an end of the world style flair. The real shine comes from the impressive camera direction in cutscenes. Most of them take place in the same location but the level of creativity on display make that location feel rich, constantly shifting the tone from safety to suffering.

The gunplay is strong but does have some content pacing problems. New enemies and weapons show up at odd intervals leading to long stretches without anything new to offer. However, due to the short length of the game it's less of a deal breaker and more of a noticeable blemish. The enemies all showcase specific weapon weaknesses, which is good to keep the players switching from old reliable. It's likely not going to be the thing you remember this game for but it is still incredibly entertaining to bullet time dive through a window. Just this time it will involve werewolves in a bathroom.

I really recommend you check this one out. It's another great example that we don't need photorealistic AAA graphics to tell an impactful and moving story.

Combat can be occasionally frustrating, but this game has a great, impactful story about toxic and abusive relationships.