Westward 2

When the settlers and pilgrims of Europe arrived on the shores of the New World, they didn’t think small.

Instead, they expanded out (to the detriment to the natives) across the fertile lands, building huge farms, communities, and housing that now dwarfs the equivalent in Europe.

It’s this ability to adapt to fit the scale of the land that the iPad-only sequel to 2009’s Pocket Gamer Silver Award-winning Westward is lacking.

While the city-builder still retains the charm and depth of the original, it appears to be saddled with Old World controls.

Westward 2 is all about constructing a 19th century mid-western settlement. You have to develop it from dusty plains into a thriving community by harvesting the local resources (like wood and gold), erecting housing and workshops, and employing a few gunslingers to keep law and order.

Unlike traditional city-builders, Westward 2 charges you to control one of three ‘heroes’, who effectively act as super-units - able to fight and build more effectively than Joe and Joan, but not toil away in the fields alongside their brothers and sisters (because, you know, they’re better than that).

It also doesn’t restrict your placement as much as other games of the genre. Building a Wood Hut out in the middle of nowhere isn’t likely to produce much timber, of course, but other buildings like houses, wells, and sheriff offices can be placed wherever you like without penalty.

Spurred on

Usually, iPad city-builders like Build-a-lot, or even Sim City Deluxe, tend to play a lot like stripped-down versions of their PC forebears, but not here.

Indeed, if you’ve been looking for a complex and long strategy game then Westward 2 ticks all the right boxes.

While the introduction levels are linear and simple, a few hours in you’ll be juggling production facilities with happiness levels (and security), not to mention wringing out all the bonus temporary resources you can find around the map with your hero.

Along with a structured Campaign mode that should take quite a while to play through, there’s also the opportunity to follow your own destiny in the Sandbox mode - unlocked after you complete the tutorial. In terms of features, Westward 2 is up there with the best of them.

But, like a clumsy gunslinger, Westward 2 goes and shoots itself in the foot by offering up one of the worst control methods I’ve seen on the iPad for a long time - a fact that’s especially galling given that the original game played so well on the iPhone.

Two finger-taps (to slowly scroll the map) hardly ever register, activating the bounding box is frankly a matter of luck, and the interface - thanks in part to the sheer amount of content - is not exactly intuitive, hiding away options in multiple menus.

While these control issues may not be too bad in a turn-based game, I ran into multiple occasions where my town was effectively destroyed by bandits thanks to my characters being unable to follow my commands properly.

These are all issues that could be fixed in an update, and they’re not as game-breakingly bad as, say, OpenTTD - but that game was a free open-source port, not a retail title.

Hopefully, Sandlot Games can spend some time optimising the game for future players, because there’s a lot to like about Westward 2. It’s just a shame it’s a pain to play.