There's always been something enticing about the wild west. From the spaghetti western films of old, the setting seems to have gone somewhat out of fashion lately (Will Smith in Wild Wild West seemed to almost kill the genre off entirely), but, as of late, we're pleased to see it making a comeback.
A spaghetti western shooter in the manner of old, Western Heroes is a lightgun game, which basically means you point your Wii remote at the screen, shooting the bad guys that appear, along with blasting away at various powerups, pickups, and other objects, as you and your team attempt to rid the Wild West of a nefarious villain.
At least, you would point your Wii Remote at the screen - in any other lightgun game. Western Heroes, however, likes to do things a little bit differently. Coming bundle with a Winchester Rifle, in Western Heroes, you don't just pretend you're holding a gun - you really are. Known as the 'rifle that won the West', it's been designed to be as accurate a replica of the real life rifle as possible - even down to reloading by pulling a lever beneath the trigger. Although, we bet a cowboy's weapons would never stay this sparkly clean...
Shiny shiny! Hardly authentic Western though...
It's a cool peripheral to use, and it makes the experience that much more authentic - which is a strange thing to say about a game that's a Western when you're sitting safe at home. It's well constructed, and everything slots into it nicely - the only problem we really have is that it's the wrong colour. If it had a nice wooden effect, it would have looked a lot better - but the Wii white kind of ruins the illusion. Boo!
As it only ships with one of the rifles, if you're playing in multiplayer (which you really should be), you'll mostly all be playing with Wii Remotes anyway, but thankfully, not much is lost from the experience.
Playing as one of a gang of the Western Heroes in question (which includes an Indian and a black cowboy for completion's sake), it's up to you to stop the nefarious Professor Molina, a man with a robotic arm, who's looking to turn the western plains into an industrial wasteland. All together now - boo!
Quick, take out the bad guys!
What this involves is blasting your way through twelve levels of western themed settings, as you speed through shanty towns on the Justice Rider (the name of your wagon), and negotiate raging rivers on a makeshift raft, cutting your way through sandstone valleys. As your viewpoint moves for you, all you have to worry about is aiming at, and taking out the bad guys as they pop up from behind barrels, dive into view, and ride past on horses (much to Sarah's chagrin, as she always confuses the horses for bad guys...)
Of course, it's not just you blasting the bad guys all the way through, as they can shoot themselves. A circle will appear around a baddies' head when he's about to shoot at you, giving you a few seconds to shoot first, and save your own hide. Luckily, you can take plenty of hits before it's a game over, as the game's quite forgiving - and even if you do get a game over, you'll likely only lose a few seconds of progress, thanks to the very regular checkpoints,
Don't shoot the Indian/Native American! They're on your side!
It's all fairly standard, but it's still a lot of fun, with the varied scenery, and enemy types helping keep things fresh. If you can take out an enemy with every shot you take, you'll start to build up a multiplier, which you'll lose by reloading, forcing those looking for a high score to fight the urge to reload whenever they get a breather - and playing in multiplayer, you know you'll want the high score.
However, we did have our fair share of problems with Western Heroes. While the main game was fine, for the first eleven levels, when we got to the last level, it froze. Just as we got to the end of the level, and started blasting at Professor Molina's train, the game suddenly stopped, a high pitched buzzing sound started, and the Wii jammed up. Twice, in a row, at the same place. If it was once, we could have written it off as a coincidence, but playing through again, we had the exact same thing happen, in the same place. On our third go through, we managed to finish the level, and therefore finish the game, and a subsequent replay went fine too. But then, on our fifth attempt, just to double check that it really was a problem with the level, it froze again, meaning froze on 3/5 attempts.
And this is a real shame, because without the glitch, Western Heroes would easily have been a strong 7/10, coming with a good peripheral, and a game that's genuinely a lot of fun to play. Bearing in mind the problems we had, however, we can't really justify giving this more than a 5/10. If you don't mind replaying the level several times before you can eventually finish the game, feel free to give it the extra two points - the rest of the game's definitely worth it.
Format Reviewed: Nintendo Wii
