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| Thursday, August 14, 2008 08:46 PM |
| (Last updated on Friday, August 15, 2008 11:24 AM) | | Wild West Guns |
 by Fëanor |
I recently purchased my first game from WiiWare, which is an online store for Wii owners where you can buy and download original games made specifically for the Wii. The game I picked out was Wild West Guns, and it's a pretty straightforward shooting game. You can play it with the Wii Zapper or just a naked Wii Remote. I tried it both ways and was surprised to find I was much faster and more accurate just using the Wii Remote, so I stuck with that.
The game consists of six levels, each split into three separate quests that you have to complete in order. Each level only unlocks after you've beat the previous level with a certain number of points (points are actually dollars in the game, which I enjoyed). After you've beat all six levels on Normal difficulty level, a new Hard difficulty level gets unlocked, and you get to do it all again, but this time a little different. The tasks all take place in one of a handful of settings (a moving train, a wild west saloon, the street of a wild west town, a farm, inside a barn, etc.), and include basic target shooting; keeping a can in the air for sixty seconds; saving rabbits from getting eaten by vultures; shooting sombreros before they can hit the ground; and shooting all the bandits you see before they shoot you. You can get extra points by shooting at likely targets in the background (like bells, windows, and various animals). But of course the way to get the most points is to not miss, as your multiplier bonus increases for every accurate shot in a row. There's also a set of achievements listed in the menu which have vaguely descriptive names, but don't tell you how to achieve them until after you've already done so (things like "collect more than $1,000,000" and so forth). It's a little irritating that you don't even know the goal you're shooting for until after you've passed it, but also kind of mysterious and interesting.
As for negatives: the game is a bit repetitive, there isn't really all that much of it (I've already beaten every level on every difficulty, and achieved every achievement but one), there's not a lot of variation in the little voice recordings they throw at you (I swear the guy says "The best in the west" every other time he talks), and the text that appears on the loading screens, which is clearly meant to approximate the clever, funny things that Guitar Hero says to you while it's loading, is sadly rarely clever or funny. All that being said, it's a very entertaining game that I'm sure I'll play again (especially the multiplayer mode, which I haven't even tried yet), perhaps to achieve higher scores, or just when I get the hankering to shoot something. And considering I only paid $10 for it and didn't even have to go out to a store to get it, I'd say it was worth it.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention one of the most amusing aspects of the game, which is the fact that very often a short, fat man strapped with dynamite will run screaming and laughing at you, and he explodes when you shoot him. He is referred to by the game as a mad scientist, but he seems more like an insane, suicidal banker to me. Regardless, he's pretty hilarious. |
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