Weird West Review – A Fantastical Frontier

Reviewed on: PC
Also on: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Developer: WolfEye Studios
Rating: Mature

Weird West is a spellbinding, isometric portrayal of the Wild West. From the minds behind Dishonored and Prey, this compelling immersive sim is unlike any western tale you’ve experienced. Its macabre frontier isn’t just a land of cowboys and cattle but one brimming with old magic and hideous monstrosities like werewolves, flesh-eating sirens, gold-hungry zombies, and bewitched trees capable of trapping the souls of men. 

The game’s main narrative is a five-chapter anthology following the lives of five “heroes” – a bounty hunter, a man-turned-pig, a tribal protector, a werewolf, and a zealot – whose journeys are unknowingly connected. You play as the Passenger, a faceless entity who possesses a new protagonist in every chapter for mysterious reasons. The story begins by following a rancher who’s given up her old life as a bounty hunter but must dig up her irons to rescue her kidnapped family member. What starts as a safe, conventional cowboy revenge story unravels into a tale of unbelievable outcomes. You’ll help a poet lift a curse in one moment, causing him to only speak in rhymes. In another, you’ll contemplate turning in a sheriff after discovering they’ve converted the jail into a meat market and are feeding on imprisoned criminals’ corpses. After a slow start, Weird West quickly ups the ante in thrilling and absurd ways, and just when you’ve figured things out, something unexpectedly changes. It’s so fun seeing how each chapter spirals into another with every new revelation. 

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While the mythology of Weird West is enchanting, its sandbox gameplay brings the world to life. You can solve most problems via stealth as long as you stay out of sight and adequately hide bodies, though there’s a bevy of guns, bows, and melee weapons enticing you to engage in the game’s raucous twin-stick-style shoot-outs. Blast foes into bits with the shotgun’s screen-shaking burst, fan the revolver’s hammer to unleash a rain of bullets, or quietly eliminate opponents with Sentry Silencer. This unlockable rifle ability silences your next shot and doubles damage to unaware enemies. 

Each of the five protagonists wields unique spells in addition to perks like increased health or movement speed they share with the other characters. The Pigman can deflect bullets with his rubbery skin, soak the surrounding ground in poison, or charge enemies headfirst to deal devastating damage. At the same time, the Protector is capable of summoning spirit bears or tornadoes that can be imbued with elemental properties. Combat requires a level of precision best suited for mouse and keyboard, but if your only option is to play Weird West with a controller, I’d recommend using the game’s Tactical Mode, which slows time down to let you better plan out your movements. 

You could aim at the apparent red-hued TNT barrel for a loud explosion or blast away at a box of ammunition, sending a barrage of bullets in every direction. However, I don’t recommend the latter method if you’re low on ammo. Many enemies have weaknesses like fire or poison, but sometimes you’ll find yourself low on supplies. Instead of using a dynamite stick or molotov cocktail to cause a fire, equip the bow and arrow next to a nearby flame to create a fire arrow. Make sure you don’t accidentally blow yourself up, as I did several times. If you set yourself on fire, quickly find a water source – a pond, bathtub, or even a water pump – before burning to death. These physics-based interactions make me enjoy solving the game’s challenges, though it’s frustrating when awkward camera angles hinder my best-laid plans.

The overworld of Weird West is large and populated with dozens – nearly hundreds – of diamond-shaped nodes representing the many homesteads, towns, and stretches of wilderness you can travel between. The map’s abundance of locations is sometimes overwhelming, with new areas cropping up on almost every trek, though I am often rewarded with new loot when I stop. In addition to serving as trade hubs and places of rest, towns are often places you can hire mercenaries to join your posse as party members. While some hired hands will help your cause free of charge – revenge often serves as a better currency than coins – many will require a hefty upfront fee before lending their trigger finger. 

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How will you earn money, though? You could break into the bank and rob its coffers if you have enough dynamite or lockpicks. Though choices often come with consequences (even outside of story moments), it’s better to return at night when the bank’s closed if you want to avoid a shoot-out or a criminal reputation. With a rope in your inventory, scale the bank’s rooftop and quietly enter through the chimney chute. Regardless of approach, Weird West entertains a bevy of playstyles, often encouraging me to look at situations through a different lens. 

Whether in notable moments or otherwise forgettable encounters, Weird West remembers everything you do. Side characters you betray will show up much later, sometimes during pivotal moments, to enact swift vengeance. On the flip side, new friends – like the lady whose land deed I retrieved – might show up in your time of desperation if you assisted them earlier in your journey. These consequences add significance to even the smallest choices, and you never know how the world might react to a decision. If you eradicate all of the people in a town – yeah, I’m looking at all of you sickos who did this while playing Skyrim in high school – the space will become abandoned. After enough time passes, it will become a literal ghost town, as ghoulish monsters attracted by the smell of rotting corpses take up residence and permanently transform the establishment into a hellish domain.  

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Weird West’s best assets are its well-developed characters and deep gameplay systems, but its overall production value is underwhelming. The game’s cell-shading looks good enough on higher settings and large screens, but the composition quickly becomes muddy on less-powerful machines like my Steam Deck. Additionally, a minor bug prevented me from saving my game occasionally, leading to several frustrating deaths. 

Regardless, developer Wolfeye Studios has crafted one hell of a debut release. Weird West subverts expectations, twisting well-trodden cowboy tropes into dark fantasy vignettes brought to life by immersive sandbox elements. 

Score: 8.5

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The Ascent Review – Mindless Mechanical Mayhem

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Reviewed on: PC
Also on: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Publisher: Curve Digital
Developer: Neon Giant
Rating: Mature

From the iconic works of Philip K. Dick to the seminal table-top RPG by Mike Pondsmith, fans of the cyberpunk genre are familiar with the theme of characters in search of an identity and purpose. The Ascent suffers from a similar identity crisis in its attempts to pull from dungeon-crawling RPGs and twin-stick shooters, but it never ascends to the heights of either genre. This mindlessly fun co-op experience features bombastic gunplay, engaging cybernetic abilities, and a visually impressive world to wreak havoc in.

The Ascent takes place in the tech-obsessed world of Veles, controlled by maniacal corporations, and players control an indentured laborer who becomes wrapped up in a mystery as they battle for their freedom. While I enjoy the cyberpunk genre, The Ascent’s grating narrative contains all my least favorite tropes: incessant expletives, human rights abominations, and a profoundly bleak world. Those tropes aren’t inherently bad when handled with nuance, but the main story never dives into anything of substance, making those dark themes more set dressing than meaningful commentary. Combine that with a lot of confusing jargon and lore, and I found myself wanting to skip through dialogue to get back to what the game does best: turning you into a cybernetic warrior.

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Combat is The Ascent’s main strength. The moment-to-moment gunplay is exhilarating, with waves of varied baddies headed your way at virtually every moment. Developer Neon Giant also ups the fun with a diverse inventory of weapons and some truly fantastic augmentations and tactical weapons that can send enemies flying. Some of my favorite moments included blowing away corporate goons with a rocket-spitting Gatling gun then finishing them off with a devastating energy punch.

While most of the fights left me satisfied (if not overwhelmed, but more on that later), the combat grows slightly monotonous as the game goes on. Through an upgrade vendor, I started to find my favorite weapons and boost them, which outpowered most loot drops, making them largely irrelevant. That lack of variation also extends to your armor as well.

The Ascent is a shallow RPG experience, with stats that don’t always feel purposeful. I was always thankful to have points to boost my health and energy levels, but I found some of the other categories and even the armor inconsequential outside of the generic protection buffs. It’s hard to know what specific attacks you’re even trying to protect against. I seldom paid attention to attributes such as fire protection because I could usually blaze through enemies with the right tactics and augmentations. That was especially true when playing with others when the onscreen tumult becomes extremely difficult to track.

The Ascent is best experienced in co-op. Up to four players can enjoyably play the majority of The Ascent’s 15-20 hour story. The bombastic fights are more manageable with a team alongside you, and the combat starts to sing when you’re synched with explosive weaponry and chaotic augmentations.

While co-op is the highlight, co-op play still has a plethora of annoyances. A limited pool of health drops aided in my team’s demise, as the number of HP pickups doesn’t seem to scale to the greater player count. It is also hard to find your partners in the world as player indicators blend in with the rest of the map. That problem is exacerbated thanks to a surprisingly large play space. My other complaint is how progress is handled. I jumped into a coworker’s game for a few hours, only to find my progress was utterly gone because I wasn’t hosting the match.

Co-op is the main draw, but solo players shouldn’t despair. Half of my time was spent on my own, and I still enjoyed the experience with some caveats. Picking up health is easier alone, but I grew frustrated in many encounters as I was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies ­– it seems that the game was balanced with co-op in mind. These encounters aren’t impossible, but you’ll have to play smarter and plan your augmentations instead of the normal running and gunning.

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The game’s other great strength lies within its presentation. Neon Giant has crammed a staggering amount of detail into the world. Each corner of Veles is disgusting in the best sort of way, with its denizens throwing garbage onto the dilapidated metal plates of the sprawling megacity. The game’s lighting is equally beautiful if, at times, a little bit of a neon-soaked strain on the eyes. The camera work is also impressive and moves in cinematic and engaging ways. Finally, the music hits a high mark, with clear callbacks to iconic sci-fi fiction of the past, such as Vangelis’ work on the original Blade Runner film.

The world of Veles is worth exploring, but doing so can also be a hassle. I was grateful for the fast travel points, but it still takes too long to get from point to point. I also found my co-op partners and I sometimes had the same objective, but our tracker would occasionally take us in entirely different directions. It also didn’t help that we’d consistently run into groups of overpowered baddies that would instantly shred us. Neon Giant does a great job of rewarding curiosity with loot, but I found myself exploring less out of fear of another ambush and a game over screen as time went on.

The Ascent has issues, but those issues don’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the game. I won’t write my thesis on its commentary on capitalism, but I’ll fondly remember my co-op sessions where I tore through this cyberpunk world. That being said, the shallow RPG elements, lack of meaningful narrative, and exploration frustration were constants that really dragged the experience down. Neon Giant has made a solid foundation to build on, and I hope we can see future installments grow into something truly worthy of ascension.

Score: 7.25

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Concept: Command a cybernetic warrior through the cyberpunk streets of this twin-stick shooter/RPG hybrid

Graphics: The neon-clad lighting, the sheer amount of detail, and overall visual fidelity is wildly impressive, especially when combined with some beautiful cinematic camera movements

Sound: The soundtrack is a highlight, with clear inspiration from some of the most iconic sci-fi scores in entertainment

Playability: Blasting cybernetic baddies feels excellent when combined with exciting augmentations that can obliterate your enemies in the blink of an eye

Entertainment: The Ascent is a mindlessly fun co-op experience that is easy to pick up and play with an emphasis on quick-hitting gunfights and enjoyable cybernetic abilities

Replay: Moderate

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Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Review – A Spellbinding Hit

Reviewed on: PC
Also on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Gearbox Software
Rating: Teen

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is Gearbox Software's best game. Built upon the studio's successful Borderlands formula, this experience adds a whimsical element to the familiar looter-shooter thrills and delivers so much firepower to your fingertips you'd think you were wearing the Infinity Gauntlet. Caked in silliness and always trying to make you laugh, Wonderlands hits with distinct charm and handles its characters and world with care, making you engage with both on a journey I didn't want to end.

From the outset of play, we learn that Borderlands mainstay Tiny Tina has invited a few of her friends to play a tabletop game called Bunkers & Badasses, which is essentially Borderlands' version of Dungeons & Dragons. Tina is the game's Dungeon Master, and you are the party's newest recruit – a hero of your design, right down to the deep class proficiencies and facial feature detailing.

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Playful chemistry is established immediately between Tina and her friends, each bringing humor-filled banter and the sensation they know each other well. Tina is once again brilliantly brought to life by Ashly Burch, who plays well with the careless adventuring qualities of Captain Valentine (Andy Samberg), the strict rules-driven guidance of robot Frette (Wanda Sykes), and the dishonest and vile virtues of the Dragon Lord (Will Arnett). These powerful personalities often entertain and make questing an absolute blast, as you never know how they will react to the situation. The story bounces between Tina and her cohorts sitting at the board game table to discuss the next chapter in the adventure, and your character dreaming it up and traveling into that scenario, a point where control is given to the player. This story flow works incredibly well and is a nice way to bookend chapters and set up the next event at hand.

Tina has the most influence over the quest and can use her god-like powers to alter it at any time. With her imagination leading the way, she can turn an ordinary forest into a magical mushroom kingdom – a stunning visual transformation you witness as you run through the environment. Your party members also influence the world and can propose their character do something to overcome a challenge, such as Valentine romancing a drawbridge to make it open or the team collectively figuring out how to remove a cheese curl from the board. The situations are often zany, nicely penned, and fun to see through to the end.

The missions draw you in with humorous setups and shine in combat, giving good reasons to unleash everything you have in your arsenal. Borderlands' overindulgence in weapons is alive and well in Wonderlands and is made better with the wide selection of spells. The gunplay is highly polished and feels like Borderlands, but packs more of a punch through the fantasy elements. For instance, in a battle against land sharks, I alternated use between a crossbow that fired explosives and an acid gun that chained enemies together in a gooey spray. My pet wyvern barfed fire on these foes as it swooped onto the battlefield, and I added elemental chaos to the mix by firing electrical crows from my fingertips. If an adversary somehow survived this frenzied onslaught, I could smash them with a massive hammer that creates an earthquake. You start the game plenty powerful and reach the point of being a ridiculous war machine at the midway point when class blending is enabled – a proposition that is downright awesome.

The loot enemies drop can completely change loadouts and approaches to combat. Most of the weapons are awesomely unique, melding fantasy tropes with modern weaponry to create something to behold. The devastation that the rarer weapons unleash gives plenty of incentive to scour environments for secret stashes and take on side activities. I also enjoyed diving into smaller wave-based dungeons to earn items that unlock even bigger secrets. Thanks to smooth platforming mechanics and cleverly hidden areas, exploring the world is good fun. There's plenty to keep you occupied, including story-rich side missions that scale with you and never become too easy, and a great post-game dungeon called the Chaos Chamber that changes every time you enter it. This endless gauntlet is a nice way to grind out levels and unlock the Myth rank.

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Borderlands' DNA is recognizable throughout most of Wonderlands, except for the overworld, which has more in common with an old Final Fantasy game. The viewpoint switches from first person to isometric when you enter it, and you can no longer engage in combat. The overworld removes most of the downtime experienced in the Borderlands games. You move between areas quickly and within seconds can engage in any activity. The overworld holds many secrets, just as much humor, and does an excellent job of charting progress, so you know what you've accomplished and still need to mop up.

Wonderlands' cooperative play couldn't be any better, offering an experience where everyone has equal footing on the battlefield. A level 5 player will encounter a level 5 enemy, whereas that same foe reads level 20 for a level 20 player – meaning you don't need to grind for XP or power level to play with friends. Players can also determine how loot is divvied up, allowing for everyone to get their own drops or for it to be shared. Crossplay and split-screen are both offered, but I did not get the chance to check out either during my review.

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Wonderlands is upbeat and fun from start to finish, offering a rewarding adventure filled with goofy characters, imaginative bosses, and a great sense of ownership over your character through it all. Even with one of Borderlands' most loved characters leading the charge, this experience feels like the start of something new: a rare spinout from an existing series that deserves just as much of the spotlight. As someone who has played plenty of Dungeons & Dragons, I adored how often Wonderlands reminded me of rolling a 20-sided die with friends. It’s a love letter to on-the-spot creativity and friends enjoying each other’s company in a make-believe world.

Score: 9.5

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