While I am not generally in favor of subscription services like Xbox Game Pass anymore, I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t gotten some good experiences out of them. The most recent of these is Evil West, which is one of the games included in PSN’s Games With Gold program this month (January 2023). It’s a game I honestly wouldn’t have played otherwise since it just plain wasn’t one my radar. It really wish it had been though, because the game has been an absolute blast so far! It’s definitely not a AAA experience, but I think it’s almost better that it isn’t. If it had been, I highly doubt we would have gotten something this riotously fun!

See, Evil West sort of represents the revival of a kind of game that I thought had more or less gone extinct with the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One. It’s the kind of co-op game that I feel is sort of the hallmark of that era in gaming. It’s not that the co-op is necessarily better than say something like It Takes Two, A Way Out or Nobody Saves The World, it’s just that it has a certain mix of fun, craziness and a certain satisfaction to it that I just haven’t seen since the days of the Xbox 360.

Let’s put it this way: playing Evil West reminds me heavily of playing games like Gears of War, Halo 3: ODST, F.E.A.R. 3 or even Castle Crashers in co-op back in the day. They all had a certain feel to them, something that I’ve found to be somewhat lacking in most co-op experiences since that era. (Though, come to think of it, Journey to the Savage Planet managed to capture this feeling too.) They were all of varying quality, but they all put fun-factor and over-the-top(ness) first. Playing these games in co-op was a blast! Everything you did had real impact to it, and you could routinely do some really cool things!

This is what I feel like Evil West is calling back to (unintentionally or otherwise). It’s a linear romp with an absolutely crazy premise and it absolutely runs with it! You’re equipped with a steampunk-style super gauntlet that let’s go absolutely nuts when fighting the vampiric hordes. From the very beginning of the game, you can superman punch enemies off cliffs, uppercut them into the air and then keep them their by fanning your sidearm and interrupt their attacks with a spartan kick! And it only gets better from there!

The game follows a traditional chapter structure; levels are linear with secrets and hidden paths to find, and the characters are all acted with as much gusto as their voice actors can muster! Evil West absolutely commits to its crazy world, making all the ridiculous stuff you can do with your co-op partner all the more fun and satisfying. 

I’m not saying all Xbox 360 games with co-op offered this kind of experience, but there were a lot of them and I haven’t played a whole lot similar since. That might just be me though. There could be quite a few out there that I just never heard of before. For now though, I’m happy to be experiencing it again in Evil West, and I can heartily recommend it to anyone who’s looking for that ol’ 7th console generation co-op feeling.

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Have you had a chance to play Evil West? What Xbox 360 co-op game do you think it most takes after? What game from that era is your favorite?

Image from the Evil West steam page