Westerado: Double Barreled review

£10.99; PC; Ostrich Banditos

With last year’s truckload of unfinished and broken AAA games there were rumblings that the game industry was in decline. The process of releasing big budget sequels yearly was clearly not working and the games felt rushed. And while this style of game development and distribution may be on the decline, the smaller independent developers have been producing some fantastic games and they are sure to fill any gaps.

Westerado: Double Barreled is a retro styled adventure game where you play a cowboy trying to uncover who murdered your family. You do this by talking to people and helping them with tasks. The interesting twist here is that as you gather more information a “Wanted” poster begins to fill itself in within the games menu. For example someone may tell you he had a blue hat so the poster shows a blue hat and another may tell you he was fat so the poster shows a fat person etc. It is a neat little touch that helps you visualise your progress through the game.

The quests that you do for people are nicely varied, although some of the shooting sections can get a bit tedious. Most surprising of all is that the dialogue between characters is actually funny at points, something many games try to achieve but that very few succeed at. While not especially long the game does offer great replayability due to the procedural generated assailant.

The biggest achievement of this game is that it doesn’t feel good for a game that was made by five people; it just feels like a good game. And if this is an example of the state of games in the future then I don’t think we have anything to worry about.