Weird West Review: You'll Need A Notebook For This One Too

thegamer.com:

While following a lead on the cultists who killed your son and abducted your husband, you find yourself in the company of crime-boss-turned-mayor… or mayor-turned-crime-boss. Those lines are blurry in the Weird West. He’s willing to tell you where your husband is being kept, but first he needs a favor. He wants the deed to a nearby homestead so he can take the property for himself, and as you might expect, he’s non-specific as to how you do it. You might find a way to trick the owners, repel down the Chimney when everyone’s asleep and steal it, or even gun down the entire family and take the deed off their corpses. Alternatively, you could tell the mayor “no deal” and go full Rambo on his compound, killing dozens of his men until you find what you’re looking for. There’s no right answer; no matter what you do, there will always be grave consequences. Weird West is remarkable in its ability to present complicated Trolley Problems, then show you what happens after you pull the lever.

Boomer RPG doesn’t have the same ring as Boomer Shooter, but the spirit of classic CRPGs like Fallout and Wasteland are alive in Weird West. The fantasy Western setting and the isometric perspective are reverential to the exploration-heavy, dialogue tree-filled adventures of the ‘90s. But Weird West is no mere throwback. Its complex systems of cause-and-effect draw heavily from the sensibilities of Arkane’s Dishonored and Prey, naturally, as all three games share a director. “Actions have consequences” has become somewhat toothless marketing jargon thanks to overblown promises from choice-based games, but this world is completely shaped and reshaped by your actions. The butterfly effect at play in Weird West can be staggering - provided you’re