The weird west full#

Most, however, lack narrative nuance, and come down to killing or sparing someone. Some choices, like whether to assist a recurring character who's traveling the West in search of the keys to immortality, actually say something worthwhile. They allow this group of marginalized folks to examine their roles in creating and surviving an increasingly colonized and haunted West, and all the ways manifest destiny makes an already terrifying place even scarier. Yes, the correct choice is still there, and handled well, but the stories of our main characters are strong enough on their own. In one particular moment where you confront a woman who betrayed your character for the best possible reason, the evil option is so abominable it deserves a trigger warning. Most of your choices come down to either the saintly right thing, or such cartoonish, mustache-twirling evil that at times it's almost appalling that the option exists. However, the morality system by which many of the game’s decisions are made is far too binary to live up to the game's complexity elsewhere. The game’s ability to remember grudges, deaths, and personal vendettas between characters is impressive, and actually getting to know this gigantic cast of innocents, bastards, and weirdos is a joy. On paper, that level of cause and effect sounds incredible, but Weird West is a few rounds shy of a loaded revolver.

Choosing not to kill someone can have an impact as well-if you save someone's life, they may show up later during a shootout to save you in return. If Jane hasn't yet captured a specific criminal when her story is over, that criminal will continue to operate until you-no matter whose body you inhabit-finally take the time to put them down. The Weird West is a place with a memory, however, so someone you kill as Jane Bell is still a goner when the Pig Man shows up, though there's a non-zero chance you see them later as a zombie, or a ghost with unfinished business. And when you're done playing through that tale, there are three more waiting for you.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's It’s an anthology, so when Jane's story has come to a close, we find ourselves back in a room with the hooded figures, putting the brand on someone new-a man whose memory and humanity are utterly mutilated out of him when his soul is brutally grafted with a pig-human hybrid body and a nearly unpronounceable name. That, by itself, is the kind of plot you could build an entire game out of, but Weird West is even more like its EC Comics forebears than it seems at first blush. As it turns out, they’ve been raiding towns and villages across the country looking for fresh meat to feed to their new Skinwalker leaders, and it’s up to Jane to put a stop to their reign of terror.

The weird west full#

Unfortunately, she's forced to go full Unforgiven after a gang called the Stillwaters raids her farm, kills her child, and kidnaps her husband. The second you hit the New Game option, you, an unnamed hooded figure, are strapped to a chair while other hooded figures brand your neck with an arcane symbol and shove you into the body of one Jane Bell, a former bounty hunter who's hung up her spurs for the quiet life on a farm. Weird West wastes no time knocking you off-kilter.

The game you actually have to play to make progress in it isn't as resounding a success, however. From its beautiful two-color art style and creepy morality fables to its omnipresent leathery-sounding narrator, Weird West is a fully realized grungy dimestore cowboy fantasy brought to vivid life. The greatest compliment one can pay to Weird West is that it does, by and large, capture the feeling of playing one of the pulpy EC Comics and Two-Fisted Tales that inspired so many supernatural Westerns in the past.