General Gaming Evil West (Flying Wild Hog, 22 November 2022) - update: reviews from OpenCritic posted

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

Evil West on Steam

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

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A dark menace consumes the Old West. In solo or coop, fight with style in visceral, explosive combat against bloodthirsty monstrosities. Eradicate the vampiric hordes with your lightning-fueled gauntlet and become a Wild West Superhero.

 

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Evil never sleeps… but it bleeds.

 

A dark menace consumes the American frontier. As one of the last agents in a top-secret vampire-hunting institute, you are the final line between humanity and a deep-rooted terror that now emerges from the shadows. Rise up to become a Wild West Superhero, eradicate the vampire threat and save the United States!

 

In visceral, explosive combat, unleash hell with your firearms, lightning-fueled gauntlet and gadgets. Kill bloodthirsty monstrosities in style as a lone hunter or in co-op with a friend. Explore and fight in a narrative-driven campaign while upgrading your weapons and hunting tools. Unlock new perks to evolve your monster-slaying mastery, crafting your own playstyle to defeat the supernatural hordes.

 

Key Features

• Battle alone or with a friend in stylish, gory action combat.
• Myths and legends retold within a stylised, weird wild west universe.
• Evolve with perks, upgradable weapons, and tools.
• Explore and fight through a story-driven campaign to save America.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Evil West Preview: Darkwatch Meets God Of War With A Splash Of Doom Eternal

WWW.THEGAMER.COM

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Evil West combines cowboys and vampires in a Darkwatch-inspired third-person action adventure.

 

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Like Darkwatch, Evil West follows a pair of super-powered cowboys working for a secret vampire-hunting organization in the American West. The tone is appropriately light, given the exaggerated theatricality of the setting. The demo begins as the hunters arrive in a bandit town in search of an ancient, evil crypt. Among their convoy is a captive; a mustachioed vampire chained inside a coffin who the hunters need to get into the tomb. The vampire is nonplussed, entertaining himself by insulting the hunters. Their banter is casual and charming - at least until they make their way into the vampire tomb where all hell breaks loose.

 

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Combat will be familiar to God of War 2018 players. There's a good mix of ranged and melee abilities and some thoughtful design that compels you to frequently switch back and forth between the two. You're equipped with a lightning-powered fist weapon that can make short work of smaller enemies either by juggling them into the air, launching them into crowds of other enemies, or punching them so hard that they explode. Your rifle is sticky, almost to the point of auto-locking onto enemies. This is especially useful as you'll need to weave ranged attacks into your melee combos to shoot weak points, stunning enemies out of their attacks. As you fight you build up a resource that you can expend to heal yourself, but you can also heal by performing melee finishing moves on staggered enemies. Arenas are filled with environmental traps like exploding barrels and spike walls you can leverage to quickly thin out the herds of swarming enemies.

 

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The Gothic Western is one of my favorite and most underserved subgenres in horror. Cowboys and vampires have some of the strongest iconographies in folklore and blending the two together always creates wonderful opportunities for awe and terror. A full moon hanging low over a dusty trail is an evocative setting rarely explored outside of Dark Tower novels and American Vampire comic books. Evil West, a new third-person action game from Polish studio Flying Wild Hog (Shadow Warrior, Trek to Yumi) picks up where Darkwatch left off nearly two decades ago. While the theme alone was enough to pull me in, a 20-minute demo during PAX East this weekend convinced me Evil West is going to be one of 2022’s most talked-about games.

 

 

Evil West PAX East 2022 Preview

WWW.THEOUTERHAVEN.NET

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The Outerhaven's hands-on evil west gameplay impressions of the first public playable build of Evil West from PAX East 2022.

 

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The best way to describe the game is Remnant from the Ashes, but with a more significant emphasis on melee attacks and with visuals looking considerably better. Much better. It seems more… Soulslike than anything else. I mentioned this to one of the persons running the booth (I’m sorry I forgot your name), to which he smiled. I’m guessing that perhaps that was the goal.

 

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Getting back to the combat, there were a few things that I liked. While ranged combat was easy and felt natural, there were also weak points that would occasionally show up on enemies. Shooting these weak points would do more damage to enemies and sometimes instantly kill them. While shooting them outside of weak points would either kill weaker enemies or put them into a stunned state. Enabling you to either shoot them again and kill them or punch them and heal yourself. You can tell Flying Wild Hog was developing this, and the game has the developer’s DNA all over it.

 

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The demo wasn’t very long, yet it did give a good look at several enemies and the various ways to kill them. Capping off with a boss fight that didn’t allow me to damage it with ranged attacks, initially. I had to figure out the pattern and damage it enough to progress to the second phase. Only then could I use ranged attacks, but as the boss progressed, it also summoned other enemies to get in my way, while the boss could sit back and heal. I had to circle back and hurt the boss, get rid of the mobs, then back to the boss. It felt like a proper boss fight. My wife saw me playing the game from a distance, and when I finished, she said it looked like I was having fun. That’s because I was. My only concern with the game is that the keyboard and mouse controls felt janky and not as precise as using a controller. Still, this is the first playable public build, and I’m sure it will get better. Despite that, I enjoyed my time with Evil West, and I plan on waiting in line for as long as it takes again tomorrow to try it again.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Keyser_Soze]

 

[Keyser_Soze]

@Commissar SFLUFAN This looks like "What if RDR2 was fun?"

[best3444]

I think it looks semi decent. It's definitely not RDR2 but fun though... 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

2 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

@Commissar SFLUFAN This looks like "What if RDR2 was fun?"

 

Not a particularly high bar to cross

[Bloodporne]

5 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

This shit looks awesome. I hope it plays as well as it looks here.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

New screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr.Vic20]

This looks like a game born for the Xbox 360 era and I'm all for it! 

[Bloodporne]

The armor/clothes designs and shit are SO X360 somehow @Mr.Vic20, right on the money. I couldn't really pinpoint it before. It's honestly hideous but the gameplay looks so fun, I'm in.

 

[Keyser_Soze]

49 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

This looks like a game born for the Xbox 360 era and I'm all for it! 

 

44 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

The armor/clothes designs and shit are SO X360 somehow @Mr.Vic20, right on the money. I couldn't really pinpoint it before. It's honestly hideous but the gameplay looks so fun, I'm in.

 

 

Looking kinda like the dude from Darkwatch

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Ah well...

 

 

[stepee]

Not much of a delay then, was it supposed to come out this week or something? :P

[Keyser_Soze]

2 minutes ago, stepee said:

Not much of a delay then, was it supposed to come out this week or something? :P

 

September 20th was the old date.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

2 minutes ago, stepee said:

Not much of a delay then, was it supposed to come out this week or something? :P

 

September 20.

[stepee]

Yeah that’s about as good of a delay as you could hope for these days! I love westerns and I can dig me some 360jank but something about this is so aggressively ugly it’s a bit much for me.

[Mr.Vic20]

I'll wait, looks fun and Flying Wild Hog have a solid track record in my book. 

[Phaseknox]

2 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Looking kinda like the dude from Darkwatch

And Van Helsing, Victor Vran, etc. which is part of the reason why it looks kind of generic and unimaginative to me. I still might check it out when it’s dirt cheap, but I’m not really all that interested in it TBH.

[Keyser_Soze]

6 hours ago, Phaseknox said:

And Van Helsing, Victor Vran, etc. which is part of the reason why it looks kind of generic and unimaginative to me. I still might check it out when it’s dirt cheap, but I’m not really all that interested in it TBH.

 

Just watch the gameplay video I posted, looks pretty fun.

[Phaseknox]

12 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Just watch the gameplay video I posted, looks pretty fun.

I just watched it, and it does look kind of fun. It reminds me a bit of Strange Brigade which I somewhat enjoyed. Third person shooters where you basically kill wave after wave of enemies and not much else aren’t my favorite genre, but I still enjoy them on occasion. I’m a little more interested in this now after watching that video, but still only enough to get it after it’s been out a while and is cheap.

[thewhyteboar]

Oh this is right up my alley.

[BloodyHell]

Well, it's awesome it didn't get delayed out of this year!

 

Honestly, Id have been fine with December, because I have a ton to play in September, October, and November. Definitely looking forward to this. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

New hands-on previews:

 

Evil West Hands-On Preview – Punching Above Its Weight

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Evil West Hands-On Preview – Punching Above Its Weight

 

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The kicker with Evil West is I could talk about it all day, and you could watch any number of gameplay videos, but it’s the kind of game you need to experience first-hand to understand. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve played something that feels this good to play, especially with a controller in hand (the studio recommends PC players opt for a controller as well). I’m super keen to spend more time and see if the amount of fun I had in a short session carries across to the full game, if nothing else to see where the effortlessly cool spaghetti Western vampire story goes.

 

 

Evil West is probably your favourite action game of 2022

WWW.VG247.COM

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Flying Wild Hog has done it again; impeccable production values, watertight game feel, and the most satisfying kills around.

 

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I told Flying Wild Hog’s Tomasz Gop that the game felt quite a lot like Bulletstorm after my preview session wrapped up: there’s something about the interplay of guns, melee, and abilities that seems spiritually aligned with People Can Fly’s pulp debut. “Well,” laughs Gop, “there’s even an energy whip that you get in the next level, so…” An energy whip! Booting an enemy into a crate of dynamite, sending them flying, then yanking them back into your eagerly waiting gauntlet to be ripped apart for health? Oh, mercy. I can’t handle it!

 

Evil West is probably my game of show for Gamescom 2022: the sort of game you can tell from 30 minutes of playtime that you’ll be playing for hours. Days. The bastard offspring of the all-time action game greats, but teaching itself how to strike out from the pack and do something different, all at the same time? Sign me up.

 

 

 

Evil West’s combat is like Batman: Arkham Asylum with guns and gore | PCGamesN

WWW.PCGAMESN.COM

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Flying Wild Hog is set to rescue a very quiet 2022 with Evil West, a vampire-hunting brawler with combat so slick it reminds us of Batman: Arkham Asylum

 

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There’s a basic combat mechanic in Evil West that, if you’re anything like me, will completely sell you on this action shooter. Basically, you can time a precise rifle shot like a quick-fire Batarang toss in Batman: Arkham Asylum, and if you hit the right spot then an enemy’s arms will simply explode right out of their sockets, spraying forth rivers of crimson like something out of Kill Bill. Both arms completely squelch out of existence – no flesh, no bones, just two long sacks of gore ready to burst given the slightest bit of contact – and with blood pressure like that you’ve got to assume these goons consume nothing but salt, cholesterol, and smoke.

 

It’s a simple mechanic that feels unbelievably satisfying to pull off, but it’s just one tool of many, and they all feel just as good. There’s a simple three-punch combo that leaves weak enemies open to a brutal finisher à la Doom, or a charged uppercut that suspends a foe mid-air where you can either join them for more punching, stay on the ground and fan your revolver at them, or charge a second punch and send them cannonballing into some environmental object like a stack of dynamite.

 

 

 

Evil West Hands-on Preview - From Dusk 'til Spaghetti Western

WCCFTECH.COM

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Recently at Gamescom I got to go hands-on with the vampiric spaghetti western Evil West, here's what I thought of my time with the game.

 

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Combat is a mixture of traditional wild-west gunplay, giving you a six-shooter and rifle, mixed with a slower and more methodical melee combat style inspired by Devil May Cry (confirmed to me by the developer when asked). Other inspirations mentioned were God of War, on the gameplay side, and thematically the developers have taken influence from the work of Guillermo Del Toro, particularly Blade II.

 

Anyway, combat. When fighting, you can hold the right trigger to unload your six-shooter into an enemy, aim using the left to pull out your rifle, then the right trigger to fire, or start doing some melee damage using the right bumper. The DMC inspiration is clear, with melee offering combos that can be combined with your gunplay, letting you uppercut an enemy and keep them in the air with your six-shooter. Another option is to weaken an enemy from afar, and they'll start glowing yellow. If you get in close, you can perform a melee finisher which will also let you recover some health.

 

It all makes for a compelling and surprisingly fluid combat system. It's not as fast-paced as such as DMC, but the inspiration is clear. Other elements of combat that draw from other sources are opportunities to do massive damage to an enemy that's just about to attack you by hitting them in a temporary glowing spot before they get their hit off. Doing this often results in an over-the-top gory kill, which can be pretty comical.

 

 

[best3444]

So this turned out very good it seems according to those previews. I'm kinda surprised tbh. I guess I most likely will be playing this.

[Xbob42]

Sounds dope!

[Bloodporne]

11 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Sounds dope!

Yeah this shit sounds awesome honestly. 

 

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Booting an enemy into a crate of dynamite, sending them flying, then yanking them back into your eagerly waiting gauntlet to be ripped apart for health

That sounds fuuun.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[best3444]

Nope. Looks pretty damn awful tbh. Watched that entire new gameplay video. 

[skillzdadirecta]

16 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Looks fun to me but not 70 bucks fun... maybe 30 bucks.

[Phaseknox]

10 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Looks fun to me but not 70 bucks fun... maybe 30 bucks.

It looks kind of generic and one note to me, but still possibly fun enough to maybe pay $20 for.

[skillzdadirecta]

I don't know about generic... the setting looks pretty unique and the game looks like it would actually be fun to play controller in hand. Vampires and Cowboys? Yeah that;'s a pretty interesting combo. Reminds me a lot of Remnant: From The Ashes which I had a blast with. It just doesn't look like something I would pay full price, day one for but I'd definitely keep my eye on sales for this. My main hesitation is how long a game like this would be. I don't think it could be too long given the genre.

[Phaseknox]

14 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I don't know about generic... the setting looks pretty unique and the game looks like it would actually be fun to play controller in hand. Vampires and Cowboys? Yeah that;'s a pretty interesting combo.

I meant that the gameplay looks kind of generic more than the setting, but even the setting and overall look and vibe of the game remind me of other games like Van Helsing and Viktor Vran especially the main character. Playing as a badass female character would have helped differentiate it from those games, and be cooler in general IMO. Like I’ve said before, I’m pretty burned out on playing as dudes in games especially dudes like the one in this game. They’re a dime a dozen.

[skillzdadirecta]

6 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I’m pretty burned out on playing as dudes in games especially dudes like the one in this game. They’re a dime a dozen.

Believe me we know