EFTWR
Entertaining For
The
Wrong
Reasons
LAW OF THE WEST (C64)
You are Mr. Captain Sherriff Law of the West and you
rule the town of Whateverthehelltownweliveinville with a kind heart/iron
fist/meek disposition/drunken stupor. The whole game you'll be meeting
people of the town (who you never approach, strangely enough. They all
come running to you.) You choose from various pre-defined lines of speech
to answer their various questions and they are impressed or scared or angry
or outraged or indifferent.
Depending on the character, they might get upset enough
to pull a gun on you and it turns into a gunfight.
There are two basic types of shooters.
There's fast no-aiming shooters who will fire three or
four shots before hitting you, which gives you plenty of time to shoot
back.
And there's slow careful-aiming shooters who slowly raise
a gun and hit you with the first shot. If the last line of speech looks
like he wants to kill you, it's probably best just to draw the gun.
If you shoot any of the characters in any area, it is
automatically lethal. I shot the doctor's bag and he died.
On the other hand, if any of them shoot you, whether
you survive depends on two things. 1: You have talked to the doctor (he's
the fourth guy you meet. The first three guys aren't likely to get you)
2: You didn't get the doctor pissed off. If you accomplished these simple
tasks you are incapable of being killed.
GRAPHICS
Most of the graphics aren't that bad, for a commodore
game. But the background characters that wander along, and run for their
life if a fight breaks out, might as well be stick figures. The same goes
for the bank robbers. Sometimes someone will clue you into a bank robbery
going down and you can get there to prevent it.
The bank robber doesn't look like he's in any way threatening
except that he's wearing black and running around. But if you don't shoot
first, you'll hear a gunshot (despite the fact that the figure is not pointing
his gun) and suddenly you're bleeding.
SOUND
The sounds aren't common enough to be interesting or
fun. The music seems to be pretty good, if a little repetitive. Nothing
incredibilific.
SO, WHAT MAKES IT ENTERTAINING?
There are three people in the whole town who don't have
guns. The school teacher, the little boy, and the doctor. With enough coaxing,
you can goad anyone into a fight. And if you're lazy, you can just shoot
everyone for no reason.
At the end of the game it will berate you for shooting
innocent people, but you technically win for surviving. So if you wanted
to, you could shoot the whole town. Nobody shoots at you unless you say
something to offend them, so if they ask a question and you respond by
drawing your gun, they just stand there until you shoot them.
None of them have friends who come to their rescue, and
nobody catches on to the fact that you're shooting people for no reason.
So in the end, you're mouthing off to people and shooting
innocent people.
I don't think this is what the game was designed for, but
I can't imagine someone playing very long before going this way. It's the
only way to put a little life into it.
Obligatory Doctored Screenshot
The moral to this story:
Leave the revolutionary video game ideas to people who
know what a video game is.
| GRAPHICS |
5 |
/ |
10 |
|
| SOUND |
5 |
/ |
10 |
|
| GAMEPLAY |
3 |
/ |
10 |
|
| YOUR DEPUTY SAYS "WHERE THE HECK YOU BEEN, SHERIFF?"
AND YOU SHOOT HIM |
6 |
/ |
10 |
|
| OVERALL |
5 |
/ |
10 |
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