West of Dead Xbox One review: This Wild West roguelike falls short of greatness

Source: Upstream Arcade

Due west of Dead, a new roguelike twin-stick shooter from programmer Upstream Arcade, takes a genre typically set in fantasy universes and brings it to a Wild Westward-inspired purgatory where people who die are cursed with endless resurrection due to the machinations of a devious preacher. Your job? To cease him past gunslinging your way through the game's gauntlet of levels until you finally reach him and end the madness. Unfortunately, while the concept and style of the game is skilful fun, there are lots of problems with the game'south execution that hold information technology dorsum from greatness.

Welcome to purgatory

West of Dead

$20

Bottom line: Though in that location's fun to exist had with Due west of Expressionless, cruel difficulty spikes, bugs, and unruly aiming foreclose the game from achieving greatness.

Pros

• Awesome cadre concept
• Gameplay is potent when it works
• Fantastic visual style
• Ron Perlman's voice

Cons

• Some cruel difficulty spikes
• Many bugs
• Sluggish aiming

What you'll love near West of Dead

Source: Upstream Arcade

The cadre idea behind West of Dead is fantastic.

The core concept of West of Dead is what makes it stand up out amongst other roguelikes. The game revolves around clearing rooms saloon shootout-way, diving behind cover, and using information technology to shoot at foes before return fire shreds it to pieces. You can run over to lanterns and light them up to illuminate dark areas, too, which stuns enemies previously in the nighttime and reveals new targets. The game has traditional roguelike systems, such as procedurally generated levels and boodle likewise every bit conveying over upgrades when you die. However, this new approach to the formula helps the game feel like a fresh new accept on the genre. There'southward a solid variety of enemies, too, and each one forces you lot to suit your cover-hopping strategies to compensate for the unique threat they pose.

Secondly, the visual way of West of Dead is gorgeous. The cel-shaded graphics are a perfect fit for the game's moody and "Dark Western" temper, and the game tin can be surprisingly detailed at times. The animations expect excellent, too, which makes all the movements wait fluid and clean.

Finally, Ron Perlman's phonation-over for the player character, dubbed "The Marshal," is superb. W of Dead is low-cal on story overall, just Perlman'southward phonation does a lot to help ground y'all in the universe you're in. It'south also relaxing to listen to, which offers a prissy contrast to the frustration you'll be feeling from some of the game'due south issues.

What you'll love less near West of Dead

Source: Upstream Arcade

West of Expressionless has some nasty difficulty spikes that feel borderline unfair, ruining the menses of gameplay.

The biggest trouble I had with Due west of Dead was that the game is filled with abrupt spikes of difficulty that upset what should have been a more gradual learning bend for players. I accept no problems with games being challenging — I frequently seek out tough games, in fact — but when players are forced into a brick wall before they've even had a run a risk to go comfy with the mechanics, it only feels unfair and frustrating. Role of the roguelike feel is dying, but the game should at least requite you a fair adventure. West of Expressionless oft does non.

It doesn't help that the game also has a fair amount of bugs. Sometimes the portal to exit a level and proceed onward won't work, so you're forced to start over. Other times, my bullets would fly in random directions. In the heat of boxing where hitting your shots can be the deviation between life and decease, this particular issues is infuriating. At that place are other ones besides, such as The Marshal not taking encompass when adjacent to it or enemy AI bugging out. Overall, these technical issues really hurt my enjoyment of the game.

Lastly, the aiming mechanics are pretty sluggish. When manually aiming, yous get an arrow that indicates where your bullet will go. However, your rounds can deviate from this trajectory slightly, which makes long-range aiming feel similar educated guesswork instead of something you can master. The process of adjusting your aim isn't as quick as it should be, either. Making matters worse is the fact that West of Dead's slight auto-aim can override your manual aiming, which is beyond annoying.

Should y'all buy Westward of Dead?

Source: Upstream Arcade

While West of Expressionless has an excellent foundation with its core ideas, visual mode, and Ron Perlman's iconic phonation, it undermines its own potential by muddying the experience with barbarous difficulty spikes, plenty of bugs, and an aiming system that fights the player at every plough.

West of Dead will exist decent fun for fans of roguelikes that are looking for something fresh, merely I call up for almost people, information technology would exist best to wait until the game is on auction and/or some bugs get patched.

W of Expressionless is available now for $20 on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. And for more games we highly recommend, check out our listing of best Xbox One games available today.

Welcome to purgatory

West of Dead

A rootin' tootin' okay time

Though there'due south fun to be had with West of Dead, barbarous difficulty spikes, bugs, and unruly aiming prevent the game from achieving greatness.

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