West of Dead: Another rogue-like in a sea of rogue-likes

I have been searching for a game to really sink my teeth into after finishing Cult of the Lamb. As is tradition with me, I am bouncing around from game to game trying my damndest to enjoy them. I am not doing my previous objective of playing every game for an hour because that got old really fast. I am just trying to find something to like and I've been mostly unsuccessful. I am still playing Star Wars: Fallen Order but honestly, the game is pretty repetitious and while I do enjoy it, I can't really say that I am super excited about jumping back in when I do. I can tell by the skill tree that I must be close to the end of the game and will finish it for sure, I just don't feel really inclined to play it and it feels like work more than enjoyment.

So this resulted in me downloading West of Dead to give it a go and didn't take me very long, I would say about an hour, before I realized that this game is just another rogue-like that is basically exactly the same as other roguelikes that I have played in the past and felt no need to continue after just a bit of time.

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I do appreciate the art style and the kind of vague theme of the game. As far as the story goes you are largely left to decide for yourself what the story actually is but basically you are a rootin' shootin' cowboy that finds himself in purgatory with the apparent objective being to get through it all. I mean, it is a game so you need an A to B sort of progression, so that makes sense.

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At the start of each run you find yourself in a saloon and once you walk through the doors on the other side you are presented with two weapon choices to start with. This reminded me a great deal of Hades in that the entire run can sort of be decided on the very first room. I recall developing and affinity towards certain builds in that game and often, if I was presented with what I considered to be the "wrong" choices at the very first level, I would abandon the run because I knew it wasn't my style. I didn't play West of Dead long enough to really learn very much about the weapons other than the fact that the shotgun is much easier to do damage with than the other weapons simply because the aim on rifles and pistols would frequently miss. The shotgun, much like in real life, was far easier to score a hit with.

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I will admit that I did enjoy the fact that cover plays a big role in how you perform in the various rooms as well as the fact that if you turn on a light near your enemies it will temporarily stun them. The fact that your weapons auto-reload was a huge relief because I can imagine that being a huge pain in the ass in an already kind of difficult to aim playstyle.

You progress like you would expect in a rogue-like, with certain shrines along the way offering you upgrades to your overall build. These upgrades make you substantially more powerful so they are a very welcome thing to find.

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This is all fine and dandy so far and I probably would have enjoyed this game and stuck with it if it weren't for the fact that aside from the unique art style that looks like a comic-book, this game is just too "exactly the same" as many others out there for me to really stay interested. I was intrigued about certain dead ends that I presume you open up by progressing through the game but as is the case with almost all rogue-likes, I really don't like being stripped of all my upgrades and weapons and being forced to play the entire game from the start every time I make a tiny mistake or get stuck in cover when a stick of dynamite is thrown at me. I feel like this is a tough obstacle for rogue-like games to get past because this was a huge gamble on the part of the folks that came up with sort of game and for a few of them, this system worked. Hades was the first one of this type where I actually felt compelled to continue to try because they made the story interesting and you felt like you were making actual progress despite the fact that you were in fact starting out completely fresh each run.

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I think they were directly trying to copy the Hades system when they were making this game in that they made it dark and had raspy voice-actors doing the parts of the characters. They really nail the point home in the adverts that Ron Perlman does the voice of the main character but here is where I have another problem with the game. I don't know if Ron wasn't given great instruction on how to do the voice work or maybe if he simply didn't care and did it as fast as he could to run to the bank afterwards and cash his certainly massive paycheck. The voice acting on his part seems "phoned in" and I feel as though it would have been better if they had used someone that isn't an actor for that portion of it. It just seems lazily done on his part and perhaps a huge waste of their overall budget. Ron is not known for being a gamer or even a fan of gaming so I suspect this was just a job for him and one that he doesn't appear to take very seriously or even try to do a good job.

So who is this game for? It isn't me, that's for sure. I think there is an audience for this sort of thing out there but in my mind there are entirely too many rogue-likes on the market already to the point where I am quite reluctant to even try them once I find out that is what the game is going to be. Had this game been an action RPG instead, I probably would have stuck with it. I don't know if it is just easier to program rogue-likes or something but there has to be a reason why every studio feels inclined to make them. For me this game was the poor man's RDR2 retrofitted into a completely different game genre. I was done in a little over an hour and have no intention of ever playing it again.