Thoughts on a western drama
I know there has been a huge topic about this already, but both because that topic is now off the main page, and because I deliberately didn't read that topic since I wanted to make my own mind up on the game, I thought I'd start my own.
Okay, I will admit I was a bit late to the party on this one, partly simply because the western genre generally just isn't as much my thing, the hole frontier, lawman, guns drawing style of things just doesn't appeal to me.
I'm not even sure why, maybe it's the machismo and superhero lone gunman mentality, maybe it's that a lot of westerns are style over substance, I don't know, but like organised crime or gang stories, it's just not a favourite setting for me.
Even those occasions in the past I've enjoyed stories with western trappings, EG stephen King's gunslinger, the series firefly, it's been because of the over all storytelling and other elements, than because of the western genre itself.
That being said there was a lot in the demo I liked, from some pretty good voice acting and atmospheric audio, to some fun, fast action puzzles.
In general, the game was what I rather expected, another a blind legend style audio adventure, with heavy emphasis on audio drama sequences interspersed with interactable sections of self-contained almost arcade game style action, and bits of first person movement in the form of basic "hunt the sound" puzzles.
though, (as with all of these style games), the gameplay was a bit boppit like, and based very much on a "hear and react", principle, I rather liked how a lot of things worked atmospherically. There is a lot of voice acting in the game, and it showed, also the developers did something rather nice and essentially had later parts of the game be some mods of earlier parts, EG shot gun chases essentially being the same as fist fights, and chasing a runaway on foot the same as following on a horse or wagon.
I do wish the difficulty here had increased a bit, indeed though there were a couple of chase sections where you could get shot, mostly the reaction time was pretty standard and a lot of the time I just felt like I was playing a rhythm action game, especially with the need to work out timings for different sound cues.
I think my two favourite styles of action, were the gun fights, where you had to look for a break in the pattern and shoot (especially with the really nice sound panning, from side to centre), and the maraca Simon reaction duels, although these were made a little too easy once I realised that, even though the time to draw and shoot decreased the more sequences you messed up, you could still just hit up arrow and space almost simultaneously the second you heard the drum, (no need to wait after hitting up arrow as in gun fights), meaning that even a few misses didn't really matter.
Indeed, the hardest thing in a lot of the action sequences was simply working out when you could act, or when to do what.
One major downer for me were unfortunately the first person walk sequences. Firstly, because you could only move in eight directions, and you walked pretty slowly, meaning that a lot of the time it was a case of turn, walk a bit, turn a bit more. Also, unlike in a blind legend you couldn't follow footsteps as they moved, but had to wait for the target to walk before you walked after, meaning the sequences felt slower and more cumbersome than they should rightly have done, even when you were in a burning house or the like, indeed only in a couple of the walking sequences was there actually a challenge, moving around guards in one and dodging a Gatling gun in another, which made the whole thing feel more like a chore.
Indeed, though some of the boppit horse chase or gun fight sequences could be long winded, I didn't find myself actively becoming impatient with them the way I did the first person walking.
Of course, another major element is the story and sound design.
I really loved the sound design here, and the voice actors did a pretty good job at playing a bunch of different parts. I particularly liked how though you met a lot of generic martials in each chapter giving you your bounty missions, the actors tried their best to make them distinct, (EG the sheriff in the first chapter with the bloody aweful cough).
Unfortunately, where the story fell down for me was progression and sameness. Yes, wade and Drake are bounty hunters, we get it, but so much of the story revolved around "go to an area, hear about a generic bad guy, go and kill them."
And unfortunately, though some effort was made to give the world context, with differently named towns or the like, few of the bad guys really had more backstory or uniqueness to them.
indeed in a lot of ways, just being told "so and so is a crook go and get them", made was almost reminiscent of the comedy western game grizzly gulch, since a bank robber with a name like justicia, really didn't have all that more to make them distinct than big bad bob, stealing Steve or robbin rob:D.
Indeed, the only two bad guys I can really remember after finishing the game, were the queen, and that because she was the only female villain, and the insane priest from the first chapter because he was, well an insane priest! .
There was an attempt to make the main characters a bit more complex and hint at more going on, but the bad guys were so just generically bad, that the the occasional debate about whether to turn them in dead or alive just didn't feel like it meant much (not with all the generic thugs you sort of mowed down at any opportunity.
I was also disappointed that though there were some potentially interesting attempts at side characters, and the main character having others to interact with than just his mentor, they rather fell by the wayside. Of course, the hole “bounty hunter, moving from town to town”, was partly intentional and a function of the game’s setting, but this was probably another reason it didn’t hold my interest as much.
Likewise while the games’ audio atmosphere was generally pretty good, the actual locations you visited did feel rather recycled, just the same windy road sides, generic town squares or inns, or building insides again and again, although it’s possible my irritation with those soundscapes stems from the amount of time you heard them during those long first person wanderings, and missed out on the wonderfully hammy musical score .
So I'm afraid, while I really appreciate the work that went into the game, the story didn't grab me, or feel much like anything but something to pad the space between action sequences.
In fairness, this probably bothers me more in a western game than it would if the game were fantasy or scifi, and I admit, if the game were about two bounty hunters in a fantasy realm taking out different monsters each chapter, I probably wouldn't have had an issue because I just personally find the idea of fighting fantasy monsters more interesting than gun fighting random crooks.
Okay, I’ll now be discussing the game’s final two chapters and ending in detail, so stop here unless you want the game spoiled by the spoiling spoilers.
Chapter 5 was starting to get my attention, especially the way the setup of the four general crooks and the progression of the game just suddenly got interrupted, however, the direction of the game just didn’t go places I appreciated.
Firstly, we have a main character with dead parents whose mentor supposedly “found him”, as a baby. Gee, I wonder who his father could be? I mean, we have had only one character who has actually stayed in the story, but oh no, there is some dark secret! Maybe the mentor is more than he seems, maybe the guy who tells us he’s a no good mercenary who is just in it for the money, is really a no good mercenary who is just in it for the money! And “shock horror! Turns out to be the main characters father who has trained his son to be a no good mercenary who is just in it for the money!
Did we also mention that he killed his wife and did lots of scummy things because he’s a no good mercenary who is just in it for the money!
Really, I am getting so sick of audiogames, where the mentor figure who the game hints might be evil, turns out to be evil! What a surprise!
I also didn’t really like how the native Americans appeared in the game. The moment Wade had the first dream of something in the flames, which even referred to itself as “A spirit”, I knew we’d be seeing native Americans, and that the native Americans would be the wise kindly people who vaguely mention spirits and talk about how their land was stolen.
Now, before everyone starts screaming “racist!” at me, yes I am absolutely, completely fully and %100 aware that what was done to the native Americans was all sorts of horrible, Everything I’ve heard about that period of history is nasty as hell, and yes, should not be forgotten or swept under the rug.
However, while it’s certainly better to portray native Americans as universally wise, mysterious and tragic, than as generic ever evil savages the way they were portrayed in the past, at the same time, it’s still a stereotype, and more to the point, not a particularly interesting stereotype either.
If native Americans are to be in this game, and at least some part of native American culture, it would be nice if they were actual characters in the game who behaved in some ways like people.
This wouldn’t even be particularly hard or require some huge cultural study either, just say have a couple of different native American characters in the game with different personalities or different views on things, not just have all the native Americans represented by basically one person who turned out to be the main characters’ brother, and vaguely spoke about “our culture,” and “our traditions”, without any ideas what this culture and traditions really mean, (would it be so hard to look on Wikipedia and find the names of some actual native American deities to mention, even just using “manitu”, instead of “spirit for example.
Again, I feel I’m being a bit overly harsh for a short audiogame, but simply sticking a word or two of actual culture if your going to have a real world culture in the game, and maybe a couple of different characters to represent that culture isn’t so difficult, heck, pappasangre did at least name check pappasangre, and the inquisitor series have a lot of nods to Catholic mysticism and doctrine.
Again, maybe I feel a little dissatisfied in the story just because Westerns are less my thing, certainly, I did enjoy the blindquest story and exploration a lot more, even if the action sequences in a western drama were much more dynamic and fun to play, so I freely admit my bias might be showing.
I also don’t want to take away from the achievement of the developers, since it’s obvious a huge amount of work went into the game, heck, of all of the interactive audio drama style adventures with arcade style combat, terraformers, a blind legend, echoes from livia, A western drama has the longest play time of all of them, and while the arcade sequences weren’t exactly challenging, they did engage my attention, had some degree of variation and had a really nice audio atmosphere with some wonderfully rollocking music.
I’d certainly recommend the game to others, and for all the flaws I mentioned, I applaud the job the developers have done, I just wish I was able to enjoy it more myself, though whether this is the game’s fault, me being picky, or me just being not as much into westerns as a setting, I don’t know.
-- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
