Cowboys & Aliens is a game that will make you exclaim “Yippee-Ki-NAY!” Please excuse the terrible pun, but quite frankly, my poor wordplay is better than this game deserves. That might sound harsh but when a game feels as slapped together and shoved out the door as this one does it’s tough to not feel offended that you actually paid for this game. With real money. The kind that deducts from your bank account.
Cowboys & Aliens is a game that will make you exclaim “Yippee-Ki-NAY!” Please excuse the terrible pun, but quite frankly, my poor wordplay is better than this game deserves. That might sound harsh but when a game feels as slapped together and shoved out the door as this one does it’s tough to not feel offended that you actually paid for this game. With real money. The kind that deducts from your bank account.
Gameloft’s Cowboys & Aliens presents itself as a sidescrolling shooter based on the comic book (that also spawned the Daniel Craig/Harrison Ford movie). You play as a cowboy named Zeke who runs off on his own to slay all those nasty Native Americans for some reason or another and winds up fighting off a bunch of aliens who show up for no good reason whatsoever. Basically just shoot or whip everything that doesn’t look like you.
Right now is usually the part of my review where I’d tell you what I liked about this game or go into deeper detail about some other aspect of it. Today, that’s not the case. There was nothing I found likeable or admirable in Cowboys & Aliens. Despite the fact that the game runs without crashing, it’s littered with other problems design-wise and technically. Since there’s nothing else positive to say about it, let’s move on.
Everything about this game is ugly. The premise, graphics, controls, gameplay, etc. The graphics look like mobile phone games from when color LCD screens first arrived. The animations are stiff and detail is severely subpar. The virtual thumbstick controls are about the worst I’ve ever tried to use in a modern mobile game. There is a lag in response to your input and half the time you’re almost surprised that it responded at all. The sidescrolling also has vertical planes where your character and the enemies can exist. It’s tough to know when your shot is lined up in order to hit the enemy, it’s a complete crap shoot whether or not you’ll connect. This is the most major flaw in a game chock full of them. It all adds up to a wholly unpleasant experience.
In case you couldn’t tell there’s no way I can possibly recommend buying this game, let alone spending what they’re asking on on it. Sure, that’s not expensive in the grand scheme of things but even at free, it’d be far more than this game is worth. There are much better ways to spend your time. I’ve never read the comic or seen the movie, but I can’t imagine that they’re any worse than this – so that’s one way you’d be better spending your time and money. Another might be to just sit down and stare blankly at the wall for a few hours.
