Back again for my regular Sunday roundup of quick-fire reviews and impressions of everything under the spotlight at Retro Arcadia this week, old and new and a bit of both. And apart from those, I don’t really have anything to report this time, except having a lovely quiet house all to myself for the weekend because my wife’s away with work in Italy, and our son is now back in Seattle after coming home for Christmas! Otherwise, just that dreadful first week back at work after two weeks off myself, and you really don’t want to hear about that, so let’s just get into the games I’ve been playing…

I’m trying to remember where I first came across Evil West, and I think it was possibly one of several games I’d tagged to come back to later on Xbox Game Pass but then never did, so ended-up having a rushed quick go on the day I let my subscription expire after those ridiculous price increases hit last year. And assuming that was the case, it turned out I should have played it a lot earlier because that was all it took to know it was an absolute blast! It also turned out that a physical copy on PlayStation 4 was dirt cheap, so it went onto my Amazon Christmas present wishlist and here we are! It originally came out on both platforms at the end of 2022, and has you third-person action-adventuring as a gunslinging vampire hunter across the old Wild West. You’ve got regular six-shooters, rifles and even the odd flamethrower at your disposal, together with a couple of in your face melee attacks and a handy electrocution bracelet, all of which can combo-up into totally over the top and unapologetically big and dumb gore-filled attacks on wave after wave of vampires, demons and other supernatural beasts. Which is about the extent of the game, and it’s great, albeit in an equally unapologetically seven out of ten way! It’s very linear, a bit repetitive, the controls are a bit oddball and there’s occasional graphical jank but in general it’s an atmospheric and surprisingly vibrant romp across a bunch of good-looking locations inhabited by some good-looking monsters and filled with some gorgeous special effects. The steampunk cartoon-realism of the very polished cutscenes works well too, which also goes for the b-movie sound design, and while the plot is flimsy at best, it doesn’t need to be any more than that when killing stuff is this much fun! 

Speaking of oddball controls, there are few more oddball than going back to an ancient first-person shooter! The original Medal of Honor on the original PlayStation was one of those games I was convinced I’d bought at the time of release in 1999 but my games shelf tells me otherwise, so I bought myself a copy just to be sure! Actually, that was around the time I got my first (and last!) gaming PC, and I definitely had later entries in the series on there, so I expect I’m just confused as usual. Whatever, this was the legendary brainchild of Steven Spielberg, no less, who had the idea for a cinematic World War II shooter while he was making Saving Private Ryan, after watching his son play GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64, and transport yourself back to a time before standardised controls and less jagged textures, and you’ll see that what he and DreamWorks achieved was quite the epic! It’s real blockbuster stuff from the outset, spurred on by a full orchestral soundtrack by Oscar winner Michael Giacchino, as you creep around occupied towns, tunnel networks, forests and fortresses, taking down Nazis, sabotaging submarines, searching for downed pilots and stolen art, and generally being a nuisance to their war effort. Obviously, the visuals are even more dated than the controls, but remain atmospheric and full of PS1 charm, and it all still moves well, while gameplay is focussed, well-paced and as tense as ever… Well, at least I think it is, apparently not owning it after all aside! 

I only fairly recently did a feature (here) on guilty gaming pleasures, but might already have found a reason to update it! As just alluded to, I’ve not had a decent PC for a while, so PlayStation 3 emulation is still very hit or miss for me, but it’s generally good enough to help decide if I like something I’m not familiar with enough to buy it or not, particularly when original copies are now at the pricier end of the spectrum… Case in point, Rambo: The Video Game! Okay, objectively it plays like crap, even for a light-gun shooter on a controller, and at best it looks like an early PS2 game, but combine all of that with my love for the franchise, then we find ourselves right in the middle of so bad it’s good territory! I did manage to get it for a relatively decent price too, albeit one that won’t make any defence of the game any less shaky! This first arrived in 2014, which I’m struggling to find much associated context for – the movie series had last been resurrected with Rambo in 2008, and Rambo: Last Blood was still five years away, so there’s no particular tie-in, but the first three films it’s based on are undoubtedly timeless, so we’ll just go with that! What we have is a rail-shooter built on individually replayable score-chasing chapters, each lifted out of scenes from First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III, with a bit of embellishment for continuity purposes, but all involving you literally going Rambo with the “misunderstood” Vietnam veteran. The visuals are hilariously bad, to the point of Stallone’s face being one of the worst characterisations in video game history, and the muffled sampled dialogue isn’t far off either, but janky as it can be, the simple gameplay loop just works for what it is and what it’s trying to represent, and although there’s no chance I’ll tell the wife how much I paid for it, I’ve had more than enough fun with it to reckon it was money well spent!

And before I get myself into any more trouble, I also reckon that’s a good place to call it a day for this week! In case you missed it last Wednesday though, we headed back exactly 40 years for the very latest in video gaming with Retro Rewind: January 1986 in Computer & Video Games, straight from the pages of the original magazine! Which reminds me, I really need to get on with February’s while it’s quiet here – behind the curtain, I’m normally a few months ahead of myself with these, but what with being away in November closely followed by Christmas, they’ve caught up with me! Anyway, it’s hardly a chore, so do check out this month’s, and I’ll see you back here again for more of the same of everything here next Sunday as well. Have a good one! 

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