LinuxGameCast Reviews – West Of Loathing

You intrepid heroes punch cows, take turns, and inspect monitors. West Of Loathing faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: West of Loathing
Webzone: West_of_Loathing
Devel: Asymmetric
Engine: Unity
Price: £7.99 / US$10.99 / CDN$11.99
Wazzat: Say howdy to West of Loathing — a single-player slapstick comedy adventure role-playing game set in the wild west of the Kingdom of Loathing universe. Traverse snake-infested gulches, punch skeletons wearing cowboy hats, grapple with demon cows, and investigate a wide variety of disgusting spittoons.

Mandatory Disclosure: The devs hired a PR person who sent us keys!


CHAIRQUISITION:
CHAIR– Nooope

CHAIRCHAIR– Not sure if want

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Check it out

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Shutupandtakemymonies


Makes with the working

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR
J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR
P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • You can tell it’s a Unity game because it keeps spawning on the wrong monitor.
  • Want to play it with a color scheme which doesn’t sear your retinas? Get some sun glasses until you unlock the Nostalgia perk and the smooth sepia color scheme it comes with.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Shiny / Sounds

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • This is a good example of a game going for a “look” and pulling it off.
  • I was a little worried at first glance because it looked low-rent and half-arsed.
  • Thankfully it’s not.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • This game doesn’t get any points for visual fidelity, but that’s really not the point.
  • It’s basically this Brechtian setup to get you to actually pay attention to the writing
  • The soundtrack is pretty good

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • The only thing I can add here and it was the one complaint I have about the game is how the combat animations take for fucking ever!
  • The only reason it doesn’t get dinged a chair is because you can literally speed up the combat animation to 200%.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Control

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Why the hell does this not support gamepads?

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Some controller support would be appreciated

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • … Setting the Steam Controller to Mouse/Keyboard emulation works fine.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


FUN

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • I don’t hate it so far, it has that going for it.
  • Using some knowledge from watching Jordan & Sandy while doing the turn-based bits.
  • Turns out if you add enough random bullshittery into a game I can ignore the turn-based bits.
  • Hell, I sorta don’t mind them.
  • It even has a an auto skill spending thingy so I don’t have have to play the spreadsheet game.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Appearances aside, this is actually a really well made RPG
  • The system is simple to grasp, yet remarkably deep and robust
  • I like the trait system especially, just because it changes your character in ways that directly correspond to stuff you do in the story
  • In the end, everything basically devolves to fetch quests, but they’re well done, and with a pretty decent sense of humour
  • The writing is by far the game’s biggest strength
  • The open world aspect is pretty neat too. Especially the area discovery

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • My all time favorite game is Fallout 2.
  • I love its blend of serious, epic journey with whacky self referential and, at times, self-deprecating humor.
  • It’s a game that, even if I already know every nook and cranny, every possible outcome of every quest, every last random encounter and how likely I am to find it, I keep going back to.
  • Not for the sake of “Nostalgia” but because to me that is the epitome of a game which manages to be great despite its technical shortcomings.
  • Worst of which, and since Bethesda now owns the rights to it, it’s not on Linux.
  • West of Loathing is on Linux and, even though it’s actively trying to parody itself and other games in its genre (like Fallout 1 and 2) and comes with a stick figure aesthetic, it succeeds at recreating exactly what I liked about Fallout 2.
  • Those old games didn’t have great visuals either, so they made up for it in awesome storytelling.
  • And West of Loathing slaps around with as many storytelling tropes as it possibly can and still manages to be an interesting and compelling game.
  • Remember my old shpiel of Aesthetics, Narrative and Mechanics?
  • West of Loathing is a game where the Narrative is king but they manage to integrate proper video game mechanics into said narrative. At the same time, giving you the player enough agency to generate your own narrative alongside the game’s pre-written plot.
  • It’s awesome and appalling all at once, that a parody video game manages to be better than 99% of all “straight faced” games coming out these days.
  • If Hollow Knight hadn’t come out this year, West of Loathing would be my GOTY 2017.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Final –CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

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