Apart from being an incredibly right opinion haver about Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance, Xalavier Nelson Jr also has a talent and ear for stories. Can Androids Pray was a sharp, short, visual novel; Hynospace Outlaw was a great snapshot of early internet culture; An Airport for Aliens run by Dogs was a smile inducing journey through a discombobulated world. His development team Strange Scaffold have started to marry that compelling writing with interesting gameplay loops in Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator (yes, the titles are great) and now El Paso Elsewhere.
As much as I like a good story, mood and vibes will sell me on a game. El Paso Elsewhere follows James Savage, a man tasked with going through 46 storeys of a hell building to kill the lord of vampires. What it excels at is that it takes the gravel tone of 50s noirs, and adds the unhinged perspective of a living nightmareSavage’s monologues are wonderfully shot, and its PS2-inspired visuals with modern lighting are perfect for the minimalist vision. Every sentence feels like it would be at home in The Big Sleep while Savage dual wields guns against, werewolves, evil dolls and zombies – the fusion of these genres actually most reminds me of the underrated film The Prophecy.
The gameplay itself is all Max Payne, played in third person-perspective Savage can trigger slow motion by diving, or at a press of a button. The amount that can be used is controlled by a meter that can be replenished by killing. The first weapon is double pistols, but the arsenal expands to shotguns, Tommy guns, Uzis and Molotov cocktails. Another key piece of equipment is the stake – a one shot melee kill that requires smashing tables to restock. Given the way that enemies close the distance on Savage it is necessary to use these as a last resort when things get frantic.
The levels themselves are part of the mood – disjointed rooms, lacking ceilings with a background of swirling voids. This building that the protagonist moves through is displaced from reality and it allows for haunting yellows, and gloomy reds. They are all short too, acting like nice digestible vignettes rather than sprawling labyrinths.
The beginning is a little slow paced. The pistols don’t do much damage and I found myself constantly running out of bullets and overly reliant on the slow-mo. However, once the game got going and bullets were flying, El Paso Elsewhere had some great set-pieces – a graveyard with branching paths and enemies hiding in corners, a dimly lit bathroom full of leaping atrocities, a castle with living suits of armour.
The enemy variation also perks up around half way, in the beginning it was a lot fast moving enemies that don’t really do much except eat bullets, but a teleporting enemy that threw fireballs soon had me picking my targets more carefully and experimenting with each gun to make sure I was being efficient with my ammo.
That said, at 40+ levels, El Paso cannot quite sustain itself for the whole time. There is a part of me that thoroughly enjoyed it but also wished it was over a little sooner. When the good set-pieces hit, they are great, but in between those moments there were one-too many ‘corridor in spooky space’ sections that dampened the effect of the otherwise excellent vibe.
It is unfortunate that the El Paso starts to drag, its main inspirations (the remedy Max Payne games and Stranglehold) are meaty 6-hour experiences with no fat and not trimming down some of those ‘edges’ feels like an unforced error.
Conclusion
El Paso Elsewhere is confident in its visual and audio delivery, the combat is great, it suffers from uneven pacing that drags some areas unnecessarily.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
