Game Reviews

Wild West Guns

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| Wild West Guns
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Wild West Guns
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| Wild West Guns

Life in the American west was simple. Surviving meant digging a well to have water, hunting for meat, and building a house with your own two hands.

Entertainment boiled down to chatting fireside and dousing worries with firewater. Have a little too much and you might even exchange friendly fire. Those were the days.

Wild West Guns remembers the good times when fun was a hot gun at your fingertips. Making good use of the touchscreen, your job is to shoot at anything that moves and send it riding off into the sunset.

Although you blast your fair share of gin-swilling varmits, most of the time your focus is actually on other targets. The levels only last for a few minutes apiece and in each one you're given a specific target: sombreros flying through the air, vultures swooping to pick off innocent bunnies, tin cans or airborne star symbols.

Each mode is split up into six sets of levels, with each set consisting of three challenges. In order to progress, you need to score a certain total of points over the three levels.

In each set of levels the toughest is always the last of the three, which is the one where you're actually facing human enemies - whether it's clearing out a hijacked train, a bar or a dusty street that could have been lifted straight out of a western movie.

Manage not to miss any targets, your score multiplier increases with every shot, up to a maximum ten times the basic score.

Naturally, racking up points with multipliers is the best means of meeting each stage's outlined goal. Thanks to the touchscreen controls, it's not actually difficult to get a head shot every time, which gains you double points.

Occasionally, shotgun and minigun bonuses will pop up too, making your firepower even greater.

Wild West Guns is an electric experience, boosted into the big leagues thanks to its fantastic production values. The visuals are great, the music is spot-on with its western references, and the environments are full of interactive touches.

If there's a wagon, you can probably shoot off its wheels. If there's a door, you can probably blow it open with a well-aimed shot.

It's just a pity that after the first mode the remaining four are just iterations on this first 45 minutes or so of play. The later modes increase in difficulty by upping the point requirements and adding other elements like limited lives, but the very fact that Wild West Guns is such a crafted experience means you notice the repetition even more.

Obviously, if you consciously take a breather of a week or so between coming back to the game, the deja vu effect won't be so pronounced, but either way, it'll all seem pretty familiar once you peer through the smoke of your most recent duel.

Wild West Guns

Wild West Guns looks great, sounds great and is great fun. It's just a pity that the game is essentially the first half hour or so copied and pasted a few times
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