Built on the assets from an old Laser Disc arcade machine, Fast Draw Showdown is the first WiiWare title featuring full motion video. It’s fairly compressed to fit with the WiiWare size limits, but still good enough to make out the corny and funny adversaries.
You start each round with your Wii Remote pointed down, or holstered, and then when your opponent reaches for their gun you aim and shoot. That’s pretty much it. The game starts off fairly easy and let’s you build up some confidence, but some extremely quick adversaries show up.
The one thing that would’ve made it more challenging is if you actually “died” after being shot. If you’re too slow on the draw, the game doesn’t end like an arcade machine normally would. You just continue on in showdowns with the rest of the characters in that level. Once you finish up, you’re asked to try the whole level again since you were “too slow”. I would’ve preferred to lost a gun fight and have to start the whole level over. Still, it’s a cheap enough game to warrant an omission like this.
Overall, it’s simple and fun like an arcade game should be, but the video quality makes it feel very dated despite being a new game. I honestly had fun playing it and even laughed a few times at some of the puns the other gunslingers make.
Recommended for fans of the old NES game Hogan’s Alley or arcade light gun games and for nostalgic fans.
[Disclosure: Review of Fast Draw Showdown based on game provided by publisher.]
