Space-Western Wild Bastards has OK shooty, decent looty, but darn fine rooty and tooty

rockpapershotgun.com:

Roguelike FPS Wild Bastards is the space western follow up to 2019’s Void Bastards. It takes some of that game’s ideas, mainly those related to shooty and looty, and reforms them into a largely different can o’ campfire beans. This time, it’s less focused on exploration, more on individual, tense shoot-outs. You collect a cast of weirdos, each with different guns and abilities, and form the deadliest dang posse this side of the last tactical overworld map you descision'd your way through. I like what I've played so far, although I think a lot is going to hinge on how much evolution the mid-game offers. As always, here’s a Steam demo, if you want to be all contrary and 'form your own opinions'. Pah.

The first thing you’ll want to do is whack mouse sensitivity as high as it’ll go. Seems as if Ol’ Jimmy Molasses has been gunking up the pistols again, varmint that he is. Once this is sorted though, Wild Bastards appears to have pushed far more of its chips into the FPS pile this time around. You get two outlaws quite quickly, a spidery Pistolier and a robot with a large laser shotgun. I’m not too hot on the shotgun, but the spinny dual pistols feel pretty solid. There’s still a sense that, whether through engine limitations or design, Wild Bastards is a game that includes shooting, rather than being a dedicated shooter. Still, solid pistols.

I spend some of my first showdown hiding on top of a water tower, which elicits barks from my confused enemies. Feeling sorry for them, I eventually decide to return to the ground. I switch Bastards from pistol to shotgun, which is instant, so it basically just feels like switching loadouts. Except! Individual Bastards can get wounded, so it’s a bit like each of your guns having their own health pool. When the short showdowns end, you’ll enter the overworld map. Health carries over between showdowns, but you can find heals on the map in between bags of money, upgrades, and other encounters. This incentivises you to either finesse