Law of the West

aka: La ley del oeste
Moby ID: 11591
Commodore 64 Specs

Description official descriptions

The West is out of control and a new sheriff is in town. As you wander through the dusty streets of this cowboy town keeping law and order, you are encountered by many characters ranging from gunslingers to the ladies.

You must use your conversation skills to get through each character and if that's unsuccessful, you may have to use your quick draw skills and lay the law down.

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Commodore 64 version)

4 People

Main Design
Graphics
Music
Package Design
  • Galarneau & Sinn Ltd.

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 68% (based on 4 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 28 ratings with 3 reviews)

Sort of fun until you realize you can just cheat.

The Good
The game definitely has its moments. The graphics are quite detailed and well-animated. Even to the point of great little touches like the distant characters running off screen when you draw your gun. It's fairly open-ended and fairly fun the first few times you play. The music ranges from average to better-than-average. The Honky Tonk version of Oh Suzanna is well done, and the title music is pretty cool. Overall it's a nice little package.

The Bad
After a few play-throughs, you start to realize the game's limitations. There are only so many ways you can steer your conversations. You can make a game out of trying to figure out who you have to talk to and what you have to say to allow you to stop all six robberies, but eventually you either get bored and stop, or you decide to just shoot everyone. There's also almost no way to lose. All you have to do is survive the first three characters and then be nice to the doctor and you're home free. You can survive the first three by being nice to them, or by shooting them. You can shoot the doctor too, although he's one of the few characters that don't have weapons so doing so would purely be for sadistic purposes. If you want to go down that path, it really is impossible to lose. None of the townsfolk will attack you unless you provoke them. If you draw a gun on them, they'll just stand there patiently and wait for you to blow their brains out. Just do this for every character and you win. Sure, the game berates you for shooting innocent people, but as long as you survive, it ends with a congratulations.

If you don't just shoot everyone, and you're nice to the doctor, any time you get shot thereafter the doctor will patch you up and it will just be a flesh wound every time. There's no way you can die.

The Bottom Line
The game has you playing the part of the sheriff in a small town in the wild west. Being able to interact with characters in different ways makes it quite ahead of its time, but unfortunately it gets boring fast and it actually becomes more fun to just walk around blasting everyone than to try to play the game the way it's meant to be played.

Commodore 64 · by Tom White (35) · 2010

Entertaining, if short, social strategy game

The Good
The Commodore 64 and Apple II versions of this game are nearly identical. The C64 version was more colorful and higher-resolution, however, as was true for most games for the platform. The completely joystick-driven gameplay was easy to use and the chance to shoot dead a bad guy was fun. These encounters were actually few, however, and since they were always preceded by a social banter, you were sometimes able to talk the bad guy out of his misdeeds.

The variety of situations was also nice--you weren't always shooting bad guys. You also had to try to get a date for the dance and other non-law related situations. In these cases, you talked with characters via stock phrases. Learning to know what to say when, you could accomplish your desired goal.

The Bad
The fact that usually you just have to know what to say to other characters and when is probably the biggest drawback of the game. Once you know what to say to them, the gameplay is pretty redundant. Since there are so few characters and, actually, few gunfights, this game can get old quickly. I learned to ace this game in one afternoon--kind of disappointing for a brand-new game.

For gunfights, the gun moved too slow for my tastes. Since it is essentially a "quick draw" contest, you'd expect the gun to move faster. I was still usually able to win with the poky gun, but a more responsive gun would have been nice.

The Bottom Line
An initially engaging old-West lawman simulation. Fun for a while, but ultimately too short.

Commodore 64 · by Frecklefoot (188) · 2004

Not Quite 'Deadwood', But Not Quite Bad.

The Good
"Law of the West" was one of those titles that stuck out in the Apple IIc's library. Playing the town's Sheriff, if was up to you to decide how the town was protected, or if you ran your mouth off too much, you would pay for it.

Some characters, such as the Doctor, were beneficial to the game. There were other townspeople, and even a few desperadoes to contend with.

What was fun about the title was that how you spoke to people affected other events in the game. You didn't always have to kill the potential villains, and not having the Doctor around by getting him drunk (or killing him) may cost the player another chance to continue. Some of the gunslingers may call you out in the street, and some may hide and try to take a potshot at you. You may even be able to seduce the local womenfolk.

Control was easy enough, using either a keyboard or joystick (I found the joystick the easier of the two options), and the gameplay was straight and to the point.

The graphics were appropriate, with a detailed view of the Sheriff's backside, and animations for the townspeople. Each character had their own theme music, and there is a nice set of comments to either compliment/frighten/anger each encounter. The dialogue is funny at times, and certain choices can affect the whole outcome of the conversation.

Of course, for a fast and easy game, you could shoot them as they walked out the door before they even had a chance to speak. Definitely a "guilty before proven innocent" attitude for people who don't want to take chances that the smart mouthed kid fires off another round of insults.

The Bad
The game, in all of its verbal choices, does have a limit, and eventually, you'll run the gambit of all conversation choices.

Moving the Sheriff's shooting arm is also slow as molasses. Sure it takes a while for the gunfight to begin, but watching your shooting arm creak over to your potential assailant can be a race against time.

Backgrounds are pretty static outside of the Sheriff's arm movement, and the townspeople animations. The background does change buildings, though, so there is some diversity.

And of course, the sound effects are not exactly the most exciting. Gunshots sound more like hamster coughs.

The Bottom Line
I remember playing this game as a kid, and thought it was amusing that I could either be a morally upright lawman, or a rude thug who would just as soon shoot a person as look at them. It helped to extend the longevity of this title.

It's a simple game, and you can only take it so far before it becomes truly repetitive, but the dialogue is amusing in an old Western sort of way, and it's fun to see all the conversation choices.

There's (surprisingly) not a lot of Western titles in the gaming world, but this one, for all its simplicity, is a fun afternoon adventure, or a quick way to blow off some steam.

Worth a look if you enjoy those classic IIc titles, and who knows if this title would ever see the light of day again?

Apple II · by Guy Chapman (1748) · 2008

Discussion

Subject By Date
PC98? twitek (13974) Jan 26, 2020

Trivia

Cancelled Spectrum port

The game appeared in adverts from 1986 by U.S. Gold, highlighting the company's efforts to bring American software to the Spectrum customers of the UK. Unlike Psi -5 Trading Company, another Accolade title mentioned in these adverts, a Law of the West conversion was however never released.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by OlSkool_Gamer.

Apple II added by Frecklefoot. NES added by Martin Smith. PC-88 added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Trypticon, Patrick Bregger, Silvano Ciccioli.

Game added January 5, 2004. Last modified August 30, 2023.