This game is super cool. i played it on the perma death mode (humble brag)
not a long game, but a wide one. you get out of it what you put in, and there's a lot of room in this thing.
An extremely unique and compelling core conceit let down slightly by shallow combat
70/100
Game #36: Westerado: Double Barreled
An extremely fun cowboy game. You're trying to find clues about the murderer who killed your family. It can be co-op too so that's a huge plus. This indie is definitely worth your time.
7/10
An extremely fun cowboy game. You're trying to find clues about the murderer who killed your family. It can be co-op too so that's a huge plus. This indie is definitely worth your time.
7/10
You can do what ya want, ally with whom ya want, point a gun at who ya want, yeehaw pardner, I have all hats
This review contains spoilers
I enjoyed westerado: double barreled - a fun little RPG with more choice than many games give you.
The game opens with your brother's death and the burning of your homestead by an unnamed bandit and sets you out on a path to revenge, giving you a clue about the appearance of the perpetrator. However, it soon becomes clear that this functions as little more than a motivation to complete the large amount of varied side quests dotted around the map, as as you complete each quest your reward is another clue as to your targets appearance.
There's a variety of paths you can go down, and I was impressed by the complete flexibility given to the player - you can kill any NPC you want (or a quest wants you to) , sure, but that might mean that another NPCs quest will fall through, or people will be hostile to you.
The dialogue is fun and compelling, and the option to pull a gun on anyone at any point leads to some interesting intimidation options which may go astray.
The map is reasonably sized, with an overground and an underground, however parts of it feel barren and empty, filled with not plot relevant bandits whose fights seem to purely exist to pad out the game.
The movement in the game is fine, with useful fast travel options and a decent running speed. The combat is uninspired but largely not unfun - you may only fire left or right while being able to move in any direction, and mostly becomes a rhythm exercise of waiting for the right time to take your shot so that you are not shot by another enemy while you have end lag.
The "main plot" of the game is fairly weak, with you discovering the identity of your brother's killer, who could be any NPC in the town and accusing them, which leads to a final dungeon and boss fight. Not bad, just not interesting, though you get the impression that the game wants you to focus on all the side quests.
Pros:
- appears to be replayable with multiple characters
- really flexible story
- engaging side quests
- fun dialogue
- good soundtrack
Cons:
- short
- combat is medium
- map can feel sparse
The game opens with your brother's death and the burning of your homestead by an unnamed bandit and sets you out on a path to revenge, giving you a clue about the appearance of the perpetrator. However, it soon becomes clear that this functions as little more than a motivation to complete the large amount of varied side quests dotted around the map, as as you complete each quest your reward is another clue as to your targets appearance.
There's a variety of paths you can go down, and I was impressed by the complete flexibility given to the player - you can kill any NPC you want (or a quest wants you to) , sure, but that might mean that another NPCs quest will fall through, or people will be hostile to you.
The dialogue is fun and compelling, and the option to pull a gun on anyone at any point leads to some interesting intimidation options which may go astray.
The map is reasonably sized, with an overground and an underground, however parts of it feel barren and empty, filled with not plot relevant bandits whose fights seem to purely exist to pad out the game.
The movement in the game is fine, with useful fast travel options and a decent running speed. The combat is uninspired but largely not unfun - you may only fire left or right while being able to move in any direction, and mostly becomes a rhythm exercise of waiting for the right time to take your shot so that you are not shot by another enemy while you have end lag.
The "main plot" of the game is fairly weak, with you discovering the identity of your brother's killer, who could be any NPC in the town and accusing them, which leads to a final dungeon and boss fight. Not bad, just not interesting, though you get the impression that the game wants you to focus on all the side quests.
Pros:
- appears to be replayable with multiple characters
- really flexible story
- engaging side quests
- fun dialogue
- good soundtrack
Cons:
- short
- combat is medium
- map can feel sparse
This game is a promise I wish others built upon. A short story in an open-world that can diverge in wildly weird and amusing ways. It actively encourages players to poke and prod at its quests and characters in a silly cowboy-cliché world, and because a playthrough can be so short, you're encouraged to dive in over and over again.
It's a format I could see applied to so many different types of stories, worlds, and genres that to this day I'm surprised there isn't much more like it. But as it is it's a silly cowboy game that really amused me.
It's a format I could see applied to so many different types of stories, worlds, and genres that to this day I'm surprised there isn't much more like it. But as it is it's a silly cowboy game that really amused me.
The uncle did it.
Amazingly fun western! Large open world with plenty of optional quests and multiple ways to find out what you need. Enjoyable shooting gameplay, ability to draw a gun and fight literally anyone, and a lot of fun trying to find bad guys by what they're wearing.
Flatly fairly good, and the narrative gets interesting if you look around a bunch.
Westerado is a game I'm hoping develops more of a cult-following, maybe not because it's anything mind-blowing at all on its own, but because it at least tries to execute the ideas I've been hoping to see rise over the past few years. Yes, it's a souped-up browser game and that limited scope is almost lethal to the games success, given missions have you doing not much more than going to Point A and Point B to either talk or shoot, but it's the way it wants you to talk and shoot, and how it ties that into everything else, that makes it so interesting. The entire game strings you through a long trail of breadcrumbs to figure out who your (randomly-selected) family's murderer is and every quest ties back into it usually with either money to get you further on your quest or a clue given detailing what he looks like, and sometimes you'll have every quest tying into every other quest with them either solving or failing themselves due to unexpected interactions they have. It's a very emergent style of storytelling, further bolstered by the ability to just pull a gun on anyone to change how they act, and sometimes it gets to the point that even bandits will begin to fear you and hesitate to attack from what you've done. The game has a lack of much content for you to do, but the connections and threads are constantly keeping it interesting and add to the replay value in a way I crave for other games, as it follows the sentiment of "actions speak louder than words" in a way similar games really don't usually, and it always gives you something to latch onto even without much of a strong main plot, just due to how deeply interwoven everything is. If any of this sounds interesting: go forth and play it, it's nothing amazing on its own, but it's an example for the future; a microcosm of design choices that I hope future role-playing games and adventure games pull from.
Aim. Click. BLAM. Lining up a shot, narrowly side-stepping your foes' trajectories: it took a top-down game (from Adult Swim of all places) to capture the tension of the Wild-West shootout. The feature-stripped open-world design makes for a focused experience, sparing you from a bloated inventory by limiting quest rewards to cash or intel. Even better, the game measures your behavior without obvious prompts, quietly adjusting your playthrough's ending.
Worth a play-through, the combat can be frustrating at times though.
Had a few gripes here and there, but overall I was just impressed with how much scope there was in this game. It felt surprisingly massive for an 8-bit indie title, both in terms of its open world and the choices you can make. Combat is a bit of a learning curve and I think a few missions broke when they weren't meant to, but they're to be expected in something this ambitious. Will most likely play through this one, just to see what other choices I could make.
Interesting, mechanically, but I don't know that I'd necessarily recommend it as more than a curiosity.
This is a great little game. I feel like i first played it in a browser or something? It's fun. Simple, cute in it's own way, gets quite dramatic, tense, emotional. Stupid little 8-bit cowboy story.
FFO: West of Loathing if you're not a south park loving toddler
FFO: West of Loathing if you're not a south park loving toddler