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Available For: Nintendo Wii
Reviewed On: Nintendo Wii
The Nintendo Wii is a fascinating little machine. This one little box can turn you into a rock star, a hockey player, or a yoga master. Thanks to the Wii, you can try your hand at wakeboarding even if you can’t swim. You can go skydiving even if you’re afraid of heights. And you can take part in a Wild West shootout without the inconvenient side effects of losing.
Digital Leisure’s Fast Draw Showdown (which is downloadable via Nintendo’s WiiWare) allows players to face off against the fastest guns in the West (as well as a few of their not-so-fast counterparts). The rules of the game are pretty simple. When you’re ready to begin, you holster your weapon—or, in other words, you point your remote down, at your side. Your opponent (a live-action buckaroo of some sort) then comes out and makes some silly comment before the shootin’ begins. Then, when the indicator on your screen tells you to draw, you point your remote at the screen and press the B button to shoot. If you manage to take the first shot, your opponent drops, but if your opponent shoots first…well, let’s just say that you won’t be riding off into the sunset.
The game can be played with one or two players—so you can play on your own, or you can compete against an opponent, to see who’s the fastest gun in the West (or at least the fastest remote in your living room).
Fast Draw Showdown is an amusing—and altogether maddening—little game. The live-action characters are silly—and they always have something completely ridiculous to say. But shooting them isn’t as easy as it may seem. Even the oldest, most feeble-looking shooters are quick on the draw—and it’ll take a whole lot of practice to beat them.
As for me, after several rounds of playing, I still consider myself lucky if I can get a win—even on the easiest level. It could just be the configuration of my system, but I’ve found that it’s tricky to get the aim right—and the game isn’t always as responsive as I’d like (which can be a big problem at times, since speed is so critical). Perhaps, though, it would work a bit better with a gun attachment.
Fast Draw Showdown isn’t the kind of game that you’ll play over and over again—because there’s really nothing here to keep you coming back for more. But it’s simple to play, and the cheesy characters make it entertaining—at least for the first few rounds. If you’ve got 500 extra Wii points and nothing else to do with them, Fast Draw Showdown will, if nothing else, keep you entertained for a while—but it’s definitely not a must-play.
