El Paso, Elsewhere (PS5)
by
Lee Mehr
, posted 1 hour ago / 225 Views
Where to even begin with El Paso, Elsewhere? Let’s try from the top. Director Xalavier Nelson Jr. voices James Savage, pill-popping & monster-hunting protagonist with a penchant for film-noir monologues. Like a Max Payne by way of Van Helsing. He had been six months sober before setting out to stop his ex-girlfriend, Draculae, from destroying the world. So, the coolest fucking guy – with a humanizing tortured past – is set on killing his bloodthirsty ex in order to save humanity. One might ask: “anything you’d like to share with the class, Mr. Nelson?” Easy to spot the signs when they’re written in bold letters and red ink.
Strange Scaffold’s shooter specimen isn’t shy about its self-indulgences, but that’s also the engine of its creative energy. As Elsewhere opens, Savage’s sonorous voiceover drives home the ticking clock against him. A nondescript motel in his hometown – El Paso, Texas – has been renovated with 46 new basement levels. The unlicensed contractor being none other than Draculae, the vampire queen, creating a tether between reality and unreality. Forces Beyond hanker for her to complete this ritual so they can destroy humanity. Armed with a trench coat, pistols, and more pills than a pharmacy, Savage begins his adventure through The Void to kill monsters and save any innocents trapped within – floor by bloody floor. He knows it’s a one-way trip.
Elsewhere’s pastiche of Max Payne also extends to its mechanics. A “Payne-like,” if you will, but with a horror twist. Goons and henchmen are replaced with a compendium of classic Halloween monsters – mummies, werewolves, witches, and more – all seeking to kill you. The drug-drenched Savage has a few maneuvers, like diving and rolling, to compliment his limited bullet time. Dumping full metal jackets while the world moves at a Wachowski crawl always feels exhilarating; hell, you’ll want a smoke after clearing a full room with a single leap. Replenishing that ‘mana meter’ through wanton slaughter whilst maintaining your health through drug use comprises the gameplay. Grab ammo, grab pills, break shit, kill enemies, rinse and repeat.
Wondrous as the high may be, approaching most situations like you would Remedy’s classic shooter can often lead to lesser outcomes. One likes hard rock, the other likes jazz. There, slow-mo dives into a new room or away from safe cover work for surprising armed goons unknowing of Payne’s superhuman reflexes. Here, however, that can throw off your aim and the level design is most often funneling enemies only armed with sharpened claws and teeth; outside ranged exceptions, like biblically-accurate angels hovering above, its tempo is geared towards backpedaling found in the likes of Quake. Dives and rolls are more defensively useful, but Savage’s stiff physics make him feel older than his actual age.
He’s not as spry as he could be, but there’s also a certain charm to his rigid moveset alongside the lo-fi aesthetic. He’s less acrobatic than his inspiration, and has less detail than Sam Lake’s charmingly-warped mug, but there’s still something so tantalizing and therapeutic about such a simple structure. Flooding the motel’s roaches with a tidal wave of bullet casings after felling hordes of frenzied monsters, complimented by crisp audio feedback and occasionally Nelson’s own rap tracks, is the most potent drug of all. The higher the enemy count, the better the hit.
It’s a shame that Elsewhere’s polish has the consistency of a politician though. Gunplay is more kinesthetically satisfying than melee. Whether from Savage’s ample supply of wooden stakes or an enemy’s hands, hits don’t so much connect against flesh but rather register if the swing is within its mini-AoE cone; because of that, it’s possible to kill two enemies at once. Don’t mind a 2-for-1 special, but I wish it felt earned, you know? Sometimes corridors get so tight and claustrophobic that even the camera wants to clip through the geometry to get some air. But perhaps the crème de la crème of technical fumbles is the inconsistent framerate. Plummeting from buttery-smooth 60fps to single digits after a room-clearing explosive or incendiary is an absolute shame; one moment you’re in a bullet-ballet, filling the room with smoke, lead, and blood, the next you fall through the floor. Tough to keep a rhythm.
Of course, such issues can easily arise for titles more ambitious than their straitened budget allows. Strange Scaffold is another such example of maximizing what it can from the Unity Engine, basic assets, and whatnot to impressive effect. From a distance, managing fifty levels with roughly… five environmental themes sounds insanely repetitive; and granted, the back half threatens to show its age – almost like it drank out of the wrong grail. But then The Void adds a wrinkle, contorts reality and logic in some small way, with a motel or graveyard level that’s different enough from every other stanza. Savage’s arsenal may only expand to the basic notes – shotgun, automatics, and so on – but it’s all that’s necessary. The point is to properly manage your modest options for each given scenario.
It still poses a genuine dilemma: do you stretch out a campaign as it threatens to tear at the seams or keep it as swift and punchy as the script? After all, seven hours (non-completionist) is a respectable deal for a $20 asking price; plus, there are about as many sliding-scale difficulty modifiers as there are chapters for Chrissake. This underworld is your replayable oyster. It’s always a gambit – knowing when to continue and when to stop. My personal indicator was this: whenever greeted with a new level or the game over screen only saying “You Keep Going,” I hankered for more; that internal fire may have cooled towards the finale, especially with more frequent technical hiccups, but it didn’t die out.
Even if that flickering flame was more thanks to Elsewhere’s cool factor, style can be genuine substance. There’s something to Nelson’s voiceover, his mouth practically kissing the mic while speaking in a low volume, that makes it more vulnerable than other sardonic monologuing detectives; similarly, RJ Lake’s music compositions and Nelson’s rap tracks smuggled in from his Bandcamp channel also work in a… self-indulgent way. “Pot calling the kettle black,” you may say. Fair enough, dear reader. But I would emphasize this point shouldn’t be taken as a pointed criticism (although a few songs are misses). Like this review, incorporating yourself can backfire, but it wouldn’t feel as personal without it. Otherwise, you’ve messed with the creative chemistry.
Past those stylistic choices, there’s also substance to its narrative. Like Nelson’s tracks, the storytelling maintains a tempo. Punchy prose from the likes of Chandler and Hammett is melded with tightly-edited cutscenes and techno/hip-hop background music. I typically dread using the words “modernized language” to describe games writing, but this is one of the pleasant exceptions. The measured moments of ironic winks and nods actually enhance the script while never disrupting momentum. It’s able to feel like a world-saving epic trimmed down to a propulsive novella. Through cutscenes and the odd collectible, that precision is used to amplify Savage as a humanizing character while also thematically navigating the radioactive fallout of substance abuse and toxic relationships.
El Paso, Elsewhere is like a jazz standard at first glance. Several of these tunes are well-known among seasoned developers: bullet-time third-person shooting, PS1-era retro aesthetic, classic horror movie monsters, and a rugged film-noir protagonist monologuing to all who’ll listen. “Everything’s a copy of a copy,” as they say. And yet it radiates bits of flair, whether in its lyrics or tempo, that corner its own identity; after all, even the biggest jazz hits can be slightly tweaked on the fly. Perhaps the storytelling can be too self-indulgent for its own good, but that’s also clearly a motivation that drove this game altogether. That verve – that enthusiastic vitality – does just enough to weather some annoying technical faults and make this a trip worth taking.
Contractor by trade and writer by hobby, Lee’s obnoxious criticisms have found a way to be featured across several gaming sites: N4G, VGChartz, Gaming Nexus, DarkStation, and TechRaptor! He started gaming in the mid-90s and has had the privilege in playing many games across a plethora of platforms. Reader warning: each click given to his articles only helps to inflate his Texas-sized ego. Proceed with caution.
This review is based on a retail copy of El Paso, Elsewhere for the PS5, provided by the publisher.
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