El Paso, Elsewhere is a recent release from Strange Scaffold Studios. A third-person shooter where you fight through hordes of vampires, werewolves and fallen angels in the hope of stopping a plot to destroy the world.
You play as James Savage, A vampire hunter as he returns to the town of El Paso to stop his ex-girlfriend, Draculae, from destroying the world. With heavily stylised, deliberately dated graphics El Paso, Elsewhere is sure to make you feel nostalgic.
One of the most compelling features of this game is the intriguing storyline. James is a vampire hunter with a narcotics addiction. As you fight through the void killing vampire after vampire and saving hostages you discover more about James’ ex, Draculae, and her past, her relationship with James and why she has ambitions for armageddon.
Each level has a backstory as we discover the void is pulling memories from both James and Draculae. You fight through castles, graveyards, hospitals and many more well-designed locations. In El Paso, Elsewhere you can slow down time to allow yourself more time to kill the enemies. It’s something that’s been done before, but still feels well implemented; similarly, the concept of a corridor shooter is hardly fresh — but it’s warm and welcome here.
Another enjoyable feature is the unique and innovative soundtrack: All the songs are custom-made for each level, which helps build immersion into the game.
One thing the developers also did very well is giving it a lot of replayability. There are lots of settings you can change in the menu including having infinite ammo, infinite health etc. This means if you want to replay the game and make it easier to just take in the storyline you can easily do this.
All of this said, there are some negatives which need to be discussed. The controls of El Paso, Elsewhere have both their positives and negatives; While it is easy to master the basics of moving, the more advanced controls in this game can be quite difficult to get used to. For example, the diving mechanic is very cool and is crucial to the game’s uniqueness, however, it can be buggy sometimes so be prepared to dive in the wrong direction or to dive straight into an enemy and lose health. Luckily this mechanic is not too crucial to manoeuvring through the levels so it shouldn’t be too detrimental to your playthrough
Overall El Paso, Elsewhere is a stunning game filled with creative mechanics, an immersive storyline and very fun gameplay.
El Paso, Elsewhere is available now for PC, via Steam and Itch.io, as well as Xbox.