El Paso, Elsewhere’s inspirations are nearly impossible to overlook. The slow-motion, trench coat-drenched, ballet of bullets is strongly tied to a single figure in video games. It’s the initial hook that buries itself in the mouth of a curious soul. That Noir tone which defined El Paso’s father figure has grown into a more extreme form through its legacy. Just how far can influence spread before it simply becomes imitation?
El Paso, Elsewhere
Developer: Strange Scaffold
Price: $19.99
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
El Paso Elsewhere is a third-person shooter-em-up laced with a dark neon noir coiled around a horror story. That’s not to say this form of horror is that of what goes bumps in the night, but more of the unraveling of a man’s psyche as he descends within his broken self. James Savage, our protagonist, is in purist of his former lover and vampire lord Draculae who wishes to usher in the end of the world.
The plot itself is schlock, at least on paper, but opens up into a much more detailed affair. The dynamic between the two flows between the ideals of romance while exposing more insidious aspects of control and abuse. It flirts with the edge of trying too hard to be an ‘adult’ but never falls on the wrong side of things. Falling somewhere between old Image comics and the re-romanticised idea of Vampires in the late and early 90s, El Paso’s narrative is arguably its strongest point.
El Paso’s PlayStation 1(ish) aesthetic provides ample foundations to build a dark bullet-scared world. The attention to color use, animation, and general look of each character model display a crystal clear art direction. Even in more mundane settings, El Paso’s look matches its dream-like uneasy vibe. The biggest achievement is how the cut scenes are directed. Dutch angles spliced into wide frames, often dripping with a disconnection to familiar standards. It acts as the perfect dance partner for moody mumbling voice acting.
In a surprising turn of events, El Paso, Elsewhere features a unique soundtrack, including rap tracks. The quality of this is all subjective to differing ears, but it’s hard to not hear past trends of YouTubers doing mumble rap in deep voices. The beats work well enough, but the lyrical quality tends to come off as juvenile to the point it winks at parody.
With the sum of its parts laid bare, El Paso’s biggest weakness starts to be exposed the longer it goes on. The initial charm and intrigue of the first half of the game begin to wear thin in the later parts of the game. The first five minutes of gameplay are pretty much the same as the last few hours of gameplay. With little variation both in terms of gameplay and level layout, it all becomes repetitive. By the fifth hour seven, the act of playing the game feels like an annoyance getting in the way of the story.
The Final Word
El Paso, Elsewhere is a solid, curious, affair. It’s unfortunate the gameplay doesn’t match the ambition shown in other elements of the game, but nonetheless, fans of a certain gruff tragedy magnet will find joy here.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
