Completely blown away by how solid of a game this is.

From it's reveal trailer, Evil West wore it's heart on it's sleeve as a straight up third person shooter taking inspiration from seventh-gen console titles like Gears of War where you play as a cowboy beating the shit out of evil creatures. It is as simple as that. It does what it sets out to do very well.

That said, I totally get why people say this is a shallow experience. It looks and feels like a 4K rerelease of an Xbox 360 game that never existed until now. Evil West is just a game where if you look at the trailer and if you feel nothing for it at all, there will be nothing for you if you play it.

I would hope whether or not this is your jam that there's an appreciation for it's up-front honesty. Especially because this is one the best optimized games to come out on PC this year and isn't overly long. It's here for a good time, not a long one.

I am chomping a the bit for more from this developer because they seem to have a grasp on making shit that looks cool, runs immaculately, and isn't demanding too much of the player other than to enjoy this videogame ass videogame.

So first of all, this is genuinely the most cursed fighting game. Released without rollback netcode right before a global pandemic made local play impossible. Gotta feel sorry for the devs as there's clearly a lot of passion poured into this project only for it to be held back by network capability and lack of EVO showing.

This said, network issues aren't my only problem with the game. It is, unfortunately, extremely basic as a fighting game, and not in the simple but deep way like Street Fighter. The cooldown system, while an interesting idea, just doesn't seem to sit well in a game such as this. There's a lack of defensive options outside of dodge/block/reversal. And the meter is only used for one thing, supers, meaning that every match tends to play the same, differing only in terms of match-up, and there's not enough characters there to keep that interesting for long.

It's a big shame, really, as the game is absolutely gorgeous. The characters all have big and distinct personalities. Aside from the Ryu/Ken in Gran/Djeeta they all play very differently, and there's definitely the character for you in there, somewhere. The music, while taken from the mobile game, is fantastic and fits the genre very well. And the single player is at least interesting and different (though likely not the reason you would get the game).

In short, a passion project cursed with bad timing and crippled with network issues and lack of mechanical depth.

fuckin' metal as fuck, dude

Great action game! Challenging and fun, retaining a lot of classic design ethos while keeping modern sensibilities. It's structured like a run and gun of old, but it's got a cool risk-reward mechanic with its weapon upgrade system, and the combat has parrying and some engaging meter management. I'm not a huge fan of the visual style, personally (and its story is similarly wacky), but it's doing what it's doing well. It's exactly as long as it needs to be, too, and doesn't waste your time at all.