Recent reviews by Morrowind's Most Dangerous N'wah

I saw this game on the front page of Steam and being a sucker for westerns I just had to try it out, and boy am I glad I did. As for the gameplay, it is quite fun and generally controls quite well, except for a few of the characters which can be a bit awkward at least on KB+mouse. I think the biggest selling point of the game is it's eleven unique characters, which each have a very different style and are all fun to play; chances are you will find at least one character you enjoy playing. You can play either story, arcade, or versus mode. Story is single player, and has some rogue-like elements, it's actually something like Binding of Issac in that you have to get through X number of squares to reach a boss, and you have to defeat a number of bosses before you reach the final boss, picking up and buying powerups along the way. As you'd probably expect, the story is about as simple as it gets, it is a standard western revenge plot: the head of a railroad company has wronged you and now you are out for blood. Personally I think most of the replayability lies in the arcade mode, where you must clear out as many of the randomized areas you can either by yourself, with friends, or online. As long as there continues to be an online community I think this mode could have some lasting appeal. As for versus mode, I honestly haven't played it yet, though it seems like it could easily fall prey to unbalanced characters.

The art style in this game is fantastic, pixel graphics have been done to death at this point but the visuals of this game manage to capture the aesthetic of spaghetti westerns very well, and considering how rare western games are, even in the realm of indie games, I think the style really holds its own. As for the music, from what I've heard I'm not too impressed honestly, just seems like a bit of a mish-mash between retro game music and Ennio Morricone, but it really doesn't have a style all its own like in say Luckslinger, another indie western-themed game, in any case this isn't that big of a deal.

My Verdict: For a little over the price of a movie, I think you'll probably get your value and then some out of this game, especially if you enjoy westerns or top down shooters.

As a fan of sphagetti westerns I love this game. The art direction perfectly captures the sphagetti western, the music (an interesting mix of hip hop and Morricone) is fantatastic, there's plenty of references to the best of the sphagetti western genre, and perhaps most importantly the gameplay is interesting and fun. Gamplay-wise the biggest thing that sets this game apart is the luck meter, you generally get luck by killing enemies which will build up your luck meter, when your luck meter is low you will fall into traps, enemies will burst out of haybales, windmill blades will fall on you and other unlucky things, when your luck is high none of these will happen, your duck companion will find hearts for you, and enemy bullets will sometimes miss you, you can also use half of your luck meter to temporarily make an aura of luck around you, which largely helps in avoiding large amounts of incoming fire.

Previously I had made my review "not recommended" almost completely due to the punishing lives system. I'm now happy to say that the devs added an option that basically gets rid of lives and lets you respawn at the last checkpoint no matter how many times you've died. The game is still extremely challenging, but now there isn't the frustration of having to restart the level if you die three times. I think it's awsome that the devs have listened to feedback and given us difficulty options. As of now the only real negative thing I can think of is the fact that if you change your controls, button prompts don't change which can lead to some confusion.

Out of all the old games that have been hyped to death and have tons of nostalgic fans, this game most lives up to all the hype. It's a fast, fun, and often challenging shooter. It might as well have no story, and it's basically nothing like modern shooters. Just shooting everything in sight and you'll have a blast.