#The weird west full#
#The weird west free#

The same problems arise when you add to your posse. There's always an option to quicksave before you try something risky, or reload if something goes wrong, but it's all too easy for things to escalate before you've even considered protecting your progress. Suddenly I was being labeled a murderer, the father had a vendetta against me, and the townsfolk ignored my monster clearing services and piled out of the church, ready to fight. Fighting a horde of monstrous Ridgebacks in one town, a dynamite blast somehow carried through a wall (without breaking it) and wiped out a few random members of an innocent family I couldn't even see inside. Which method you choose will determine your reputation in the world, which can affect prices in stores and who will travel with you, and maybe spark a vendetta, if you kill someone and their nearest and dearest flee promising revenge.Īt times the crazy, 'anything can happen' emergent gameplay stops being delightful and starts causing problems. There's the classic charging at the front door, weapons drawn, the old stealthily creeping between rooms, waiting for guards to wander just far enough away, but there are also other methods that reward the experimental, like running across the rooftops to find a skylight and avoiding people entirely, or uncovering a well and finding a secret way into a house.

When it comes to completing quests there always seems to be more than one way to get it done.

#The weird west full#

You might think that's only a worry for psychos who like to play the ultimate villain in their RPGs, but in a place full of monsters, explosives, and guns, accidents happen more than you think. Anyone (apart from your character during their chapter) can die, permanently, even significant NPCs. Unexpected consequences are Weird West's real calling card, and a new sort of stress for people-pleasers like me who like to complete stories the 'right' way.

#The weird west free#

It took me ages, but I did free some oppressed sex workers so, worth it. I did manage to complete a main story mission where I had to sneak through a brothel, throw someone off a balcony and raid an office all without being spotted, but I'll die before I tell you how many saves and reloads it took.

You've also got the option to go for stealth, sneaking up behind enemies, knocking them out, and hiding them in the bushes, but in my case, things got so chaotic so often this approach was only ever the amuse-bouche before a feast of bullets. The isometric perspective does take some getting used to when you're wielding your rifles and bows and shotguns, but the guideline helps accuracy (those lamps are pretty tiny) and I adapted faster than I expected. The actual gameplay is a mix of gunplay, strategic use of the environment - like lamps that can be shot to cause a blaze, barrels of oil, toxic chemicals - careful inventory management, and special powers afforded to your characters by collectible playing cards and relics. It's nice, seeing an old friend, at least until you get her killed.

Once you've finished Bell's story, for instance, you can go back as another character and recruit her to your posse. While they all have their own individual plotlines and different journeys to go on, they can pleasingly overlap. Their stories are connected and intertwined, a murky soup of occult practices, witches, flesh-eaters, and regret, told through dialogue, documents, and the environments you travel through. There's Jane Bell, the retired gunslinger, The Pigman, Across Lakes of the native tribe, the powerful protector, and the witch. Weird West's story is split into five distinct chapters, and in each, you'll play as a different character.