I fell in love with Westerado the first time I saw it advertised on Adult Swim. The pixelated tongue-in-cheek homage to Spaghetti Westerns looked so on-the-mark awesome that I had to play it. The actual game however wasn’t quite what I had hoped for, and while I still found it to be full of charm and fun, it also had some issues which held it back from being a truly great game. Two years later developer Ostrich Banditos has released Westerado: Double Barreled, a standalone expanded version of the original, and despite the taste left from the original I couldn’t help but want to get my hands on it. Somewhat to my disappointment, but certainly not to my surprise, Double Barreled is still very much the Westerado I had mixed feelings about in the past, and while it’s definitely an improvement from the original, it’s still a game where I love every concept, but almost every execution is flawed enough to keep it from being great.
If you’ve played the original, Double Barreled is a definite improvement over the browser version. The game now supports a controller which was sorely needed, and the interface has been improved with the ability to track quests through journals and map markers. There are graphical improvements and quite a few functional updates as well that make the game a lot smoother. Overall, if you liked the idea of the original, but the rough browser version kept you from enjoying it, this is actually a pretty great port and upgrade.
The setup to Westarado is simple: A mysterious villain has burned your ranch and murdered your family. Your task is to find this dastard and avenge your kin. The twist is that your foe is randomly assigned to be any of the game’s NPCs and you know nothing about him except the style of his hat. In order to figure out the identity of the murderer you will have to do favors for townsfolk, lawmen, criminals, ranchers, Indians, train conductors, bankers, gamblers and ghosts, who will give you a clues like the color of his pants or the size of his belt buckle. By performing missions, ranging from settling disputes to guarding buffalo drives to selling yourself out as a hired gun you will track down info to identify the murder and get your revenge.
This is a game that I really love in spirit. It’s open world and other than your overall goal of finding the murderer you are free to wander the west and play as you see fit. If you want to be the do-gooding hero protecting innocents and hunting fugitives you can do that just as easily as you can be the wicked gun-for-hire strong-arming ranchers off their land and shooting whomever you please and still be able to complete the game. There’s different types of missions you can take to gather more clues about the murderer, and on your first couple of playthroughs there’s enough variety to keep things fresh.
As much as I love the premise however, Westerado’s execution leaves something to be desired. As it was originally built as a browser game with permanent death (No longer the default, but still an option) you can play through it in less than an hour and you probably don’t want to tempt fate too much further once you can track down the murderer if you want to see it through to the end. There’s nothing wrong with this and your sequential replays can be as much fun as your first time through, but after two or three times you’re going to find you’ve done just about everything there is to offer, and other than a handful of items, most of the quests play out the same every time. The game tries to offer some replayability in the form of unlockable characters, three in all, though they do not vary dramatically. All together I feel like you could enjoy most everything this game has to offer in three to four hours, maybe a few more if you opt to play with permanent death, but either way isn’t a lot given the $14.99 asking price.
Combat is similarly enjoyable but shallow. You begin the game with your trusty six-shooter and the when the lead starts to fly you must first draw your gun with one button, and then cock and fire with another. This extra step, and the momentary delay that accompanies it, adds a deliberate tension to your firefights, and failure to account for it can cost you dearly. In Westarado your life is measured by hats, three in all; get shot and you’ll lose a hat, lose all three and the next hit will kill you. You can also shoot hats off your opponents, allowing you to collect their fallen headgear and restore your vitality; it’s a tricky shot to master, but it will save your life when you do. There’s also a separate button to reload, and you’ll have to load each round one-by-one, which means you can find yourself completely vulnerable if you don’t watch your ammo.
Your character can only shoot left or right, not up nor down, making the trick to shootouts aligning your character on the same plane as your enemies. At first this is plenty for exciting gunfights, but after you start to get a feel for the timing and alignments you can pretty reliably blow through encounters without much trouble. This isn’t a terrible outcome, and one careless mistake can still spell doom for your hero, but there’s just not quite enough depth to keep it fresh through the whole experience. Double Barreled does offer new weapon choices such as shotguns, rifles and dual revolvers, and they do change the way you will fight, but they’re also powerful enough I felt it was more in the spirit of the game to stick with my trusty single pistol.
I would be loathe to talk about this game and not mention the presentation and music, which is just about perfect. Westerado’s aesthetic is the perfect compliment to the western theme, using the clunky pixels and the muted desert pallet to create a world that captures the spirit of the game and the films it borrows from so well that I think plenty will be sold on the look alone. You will also enjoy a fantastic score of plucking banjos, lonely horns, and an truly spot on guitar track to accompany your gunfights. In terms of presentation they honestly didn’t miss a step, and it goes a long way to make the game memorable.
I would love nothing more than to heap endless praise on Westerado: Double Barreled for the things that it does which I love. This is an idea which I adore, but when the rubber meets the road there are enough shortfalls to keep this game from being as great as I really, really wanted it to be. Overall, it’s fun, and a pretty good improvement over the browser version, but it feels just a bit too shallow to warrant the price. The heart of the game is great, and if it looks appealing to you I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it, I may just advise to wait until it’s on sale.
