Lawless West is a mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as if it was a real PC game (it's not)... it's a cash grab from greedy mobile devs. The game is a Cocos2D driven Western themed tower defense, and not a particularly good one... 5 "towers" (which are just Wild West gunmen who shoot stuff) that can be upgraded 3 times, a handful of badly laid out maps... this is just junk, but what can be expected from mobile apps? Oh, at least there is some value in the deplorably bad translation from whatever language this was really written for. What a joke of a game.
From a technical perspective, as a mobile app, this doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
There's no options to change the resolution for the mobile app or customise the graphics settings. There's no way for gamers to ensure this mobile app is running at the native resolution of their displays... there's no guarantee this mobile app will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. There's no way for gamers to try improve the low quality mobile phone graphics.
The mobile app features simple, cartoony 2D graphics, of the type you normally expect to see in low effort mobile apps. 3D graphics programming does require a degree of skill and competence and unfortunately not all developers have the budget or talent to deliver this, despite 3D graphics cards hitting the mainstream in the 1990's. Considering this is being evaluated as a PC game, having the graphics phoned in like this isn't going to result in a high quality, visually impressive game that PC gamers are used to seeing.
The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just iPhone screen tapping stuff. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here.
Because this is a mobile app, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the iPhones that the mobile app was designed for. These are unfortunate handicaps and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was an afterthought for the iPhone developers who are to blame for this. The mobile app is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for mobile phones forces upon a game. Once more, mobile devs have made gaming worse for everyone. I didn't spend thousands on building a gaming rig just so I could pretend it's an iPhone.
Some of the defects in the mobile app can be attributed to the choice of using the Cocos Creator/Cocos2D game engine/toolset. This is a very poor quality toolset sometimes used by amateur developers as it's free (so they don't have to pay for GameMaker Studio) and doesn't require advanced game development skills, but unfortunately has very limited capabilities (it's arguably worse than GameMaker Studio). Just as you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear, you can't make a great video game if you use a terrible engine.
These technical defects push this mobile app below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
The poor quality of this mobile app is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 7 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality mobile app is to be expected.
Once more we see greedy mobile devs trying to scam PC gamers. On Steam, this is $7 USD, on app stores, it's $2. Mobile devs must learn PC gamers are not here to be gouged, and can't be expected to pay MORE THAN TWICE THE PRICE FOR A MOBILE APP just because it's been lazily dumped on Steam. This is unacceptable disrespect for PC gamers. Because this is a mobile app, is priced to insult and gouge PC gamers, and because of the other defects, it's impossible to recommend. Just who do they think we are?
[b][quote][url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2017/01/18/steam-takes-down-art-of-stealth-after-developer-posts-fake-reviews/?sh=750e13e12354]Warning: Review Manipulation![/url][/quote][/b]This mobile app features a number of fake positive reviews from accounts known to be in the business of review manipulation/paid reviews. They're all written in either Russian or broken English, appear at almost exactly the same time, very shortly after the mobile app launched on Steam, all have a direct Steam purchase of the mobile app, and the accounts are used consistently to write fake reviews for asset flips and other cash grabs/scams. The "Positive" review score on this mobile app should be disregarded due to this blatant, unethical review manipulation. This is done to deceive and scam gamers into paying for a bad product.
[b][quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/quote][/b]Valve have marked this mobile app as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the mobile app (to date). Until this status changes, this mobile app will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this mobile app.
[quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]
The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
[quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote]
The developer responds with an outright lie, disinformation regarding the "Profile Features Limited" status of the game. It absolutely limits more than trading cards. The link I supplied goes directly to the Valve Partner page that explains the limitations of this product and other products that are Profile Features Limited.
It's unclear why the developer chose to breach Valve guidelines to tell a deliberate and easily disproven lie, but it seems their intent was to mislead gamers into buying their mobile app.
You can just see the absolute state of mobile devs and their cancerous attempts to gouge money off Steam. This just isn't okay.
