West of Dead (2020)

I won this game on Steamgifts and wanted to give it a try.

I'ts a fairly competent rougelite, but there were some things about the design choices that just made it unenjoyable for me. The tight camera angles and darkness mechanics are the two that stick with me as something that is a choice, but didn't work for me.

Overall, there were some elements that were cool. the two weapons on the triggers were interesting and the thematic stuff really worked.

At the end of the day, it's not a bad game, but it's not for me when I still have a backlog and so many other games are coming out.

~David.

But it's still good on the long run... probably.

West of Dead is a very brave game that ditches the "The" in its title, even though it kinda sounds dumb without it. It also is a twin-stick shooter, roguelike where you explore the purgatory in a revenge quest with a very nice spaghetti western atmosphere and aesthetic.

The shooting feels good and the weapons are fun to use, even if some are very gimmicky and less useful than others. The game includes an aim assist option you can adjust to your convenience, but even at the highest level, the guns aren't pinpoint accurate, giving the feeling that you are using very old, unreliable, weapons. There are hiccups in gameplay here and there, like the occasional glitch, but they never felt like deal breakers to me. Overall, if there was one thing that kept me coming back, it was the gameplay.

In the presentation department, the purgatory looks great with some very striking shadows and lighting. The theme for each area is pretty good and atmospheric. The story is just okay though but the one voice actor, sir Ron Perlman, absolutely kills it and increases my enjoyment exponentially. That is if his lines actually trigger though.

I should also probably talk about the state of the game. It's not completely broken, but it does have some problems that hinder the experience as of May 2021 (how is it may already??). Like the aforementioned hiccups in gameplay, broken animations, glitching through cover and bullets going above enemies; voice lines may fail to trigger leaving the MC silent for the rest of the run; certain objectives are bugged, for example, there are 3 characters you need to meet in a single run towards the end of the game, and they might or might not appear depending on your luck or the game might fail to register you met one of them, forcing you to restart a run just to advance the story. Those were the ones I found during my playtime, the last one was particularly painful, many runs were lost. Then again, I liked the game enough to come back after each failed run, but it was pretty annoying ngl.

Fun fact: the game starts with very few items you can find while exploring the purgatory, if you want more you need to unlock them, but you also may unlock an item you don’t like. These unfavorable items will start cluttering the purgatory making it harder to find the equipment you like! I find the game overall kinda easy, so it’s an interesting way to increase the difficulty.

Conclusion: It’s gud, very fun even if a little raw, but if you dislike the base gameplay, the bugs will probably cause you to dislike the game.