Weird West Review
Over the past few years, indie games have
dominated the video game market and carved out their place among the top
blockbuster games and well-known franchises. We are now on a date with one of
the most promising independent games, especially as it takes place in the old
western atmosphere with some paranormalities. Was it up to expectations or
disappointing.
The game was developed by studio WolfEye. Weird
West is the studio's first game. The studio was created by Creative Director
predating Dishonored, so the chaotic and action-oriented gameplay always
appears in its games as seen here in Weird West. The game was supposed to be
released in December 2021 but was pushed back to the end of March 2022.
the story:
The game takes place in an ancient western
setting where outlaws and armed gangs are everywhere. The story is played with
five different characters. A bounty hunter seeks to rescue her kidnapped
husband after killing her son; A freak is seeking revenge after his horrific
transformation; Siham young man seeks to protect his land from evil spirits;
Werewolf and witch. All these characters are linked into one story as they take
turns playing between them.
The story missions look great at first but
after a few hours, you find that the missions are repetitive and don't have a
good amount of creativity and variety, you go somewhere fight several people or
talk to the mayor or go find some tool to advance in the story.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the
story is the dialogues between the characters, which cannot be said to be
perfect, but they are good and serve the atmosphere. With the diversity of the NPC's
characters that you meet in the game world, comes the diversity in their
methods of speaking, their ideas and interests, and this is well shown in the
dialogues. Despite its low level at the beginning of the game, it changed
significantly after entering deeper into the story and in the side quests.
Those side quests were good and entertaining.
One loses his coat, the other seeks revenge, a gang leader wants to control a
specific piece of land, and sometimes a strange being asks you to break his
curse. Those were most of the side quest ideas I've finished. Very varied and
interesting, but it ended in a very short time, in addition to the problem of
repetition in the style of play, which was the problem of the game in general
and not the side missions in particular.
The story of the game and the side stories are
good and try to spread a sense of horror and excitement in the heart of the
player, but from the perspective of what the player is doing. You always find
yourself doing the same thing, sneaking into a place or attacking hard and
breaking into the place or assassinating someone in search of your main target,
nothing new after ten hours of playing so one of the game's strongest flaws was
the repetition in designing missions.
What does Weird West offer?
Weird West is an Immersive sim, meaning that it
gives the player great freedom to adapt the mechanics of the world to shape it
as he wants so that the player does not feel that he is forced into a specific
way of playing. This was one of the most successful elements of Weird West. It
gives the player the freedom to decide how he wants to perform his time within
the game world.
Navigating the game world is done by clicking
on the desired place on the map and you will move to it within a few seconds. Perhaps
this idea the developers resorted to to avoid the boring open world and force
themselves to fill in the blanks, which may fail and become just a burden on
the game.
playing style:
I could liken it to Far Cry, a place full of
enemies and the choice is up to you to either attack head-on or take cover and
kill them one by one. The direct attack is very chaotic and very exciting,
especially with the special skills of the characters and the variety of attack
methods. It is somewhat difficult, because the artificial intelligence of the
enemies is good, as they attack you collectively and disperse in an orderly
manner to find yourself trapped, receiving strikes from different directions,
but sometimes it becomes too chaotic, so you don't know how you died.
Stealth in the game depends on bending, running
is heard by nearby enemies, which added great fun to stealth. You can also hide
by staying in the grass, and this takes us to a point that distinguishes Weird
West greatly, which is how the game world serves the method of stealth. The
presence of grass and rocks that you can hide in, the use of bottles to throw
them to attract the attention of enemies, and espionage through the windows of
buildings, all are elements that enhance the method of stealth and the skill
tree enhances the method of direct attack.
The skill tree unlocks abilities that can be
added to your weapons, both firearms and handguns. She added to the fight a
different dimension.
The ideas that have been applied to the
shooting mechanic at Weird West are different. The developers encountered a
problem with the application of the 3D overhead shooter. For example, in Weird
West you can shoot at birds, and here you are wondering how the player can
control the height of the weapon in a game from an overhead perspective?
The game director answered that question in an
interview that they resorted to an innovative method to solve this problem by
drawing an imaginary line along the nozzle of your weapon and through its
intersection with the objects opposite you. .
You can watch the interview to get a deeper understanding of the idea:
return value:
Weird West has a chance to become a replayable
game, where you can replay your experience in a different way, for example,
most players take care not to break the law in the game to maintain your moral
level. So you can replay your experience without paying attention to it to see
how it affects your experience, the story of the game and the side quests.
Conclusion:
A good game in a distinguished world that carries
different ideas and was executed in excellent manner. It is flawed by not
mastering the story properly and paying more attention to the style of play,
which also carries some defects of course despite its distinction. Therefore, I
recommend trying it if you are a fan of top-level games and the worlds of the
West with supernatural characters.