Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge

If you have played Desperados Wanted Dead or Alive and are looking to have the same kind of fun with this, look away! Desperados 2 takes out most of the fun elements of its predecessor. The good: 1 third person shooter mode is fun. I think I killed half the enemies with Doc McCoy on one map 1 at a time via "shoot and run". But sometimes I needed it to get around objects that characters got stuck on. 2 it's still RTS. 3 graphics look decent. The bad: 1 bugs: - characters get stuck frequently due to other characters or the environment - they fall through some roofs - knocked out enemies may ragdoll and fly away - characters may not respond to click commands I am not sure why the "most helpful" reviewer claimed that the bugs were fixed. 2 No tutorial. 3 Tedium: - 2 missions are almost exact copies from Desperados 1. - several "protect civilians" missions where civilians seem to want to die. - maps repeat between missions. Right now, I'm playing a third back-to-back mission on the same map with a "no kill/no alarm" requirement. Same starting point but the difference is that you have to enter a different building. Hours of waiting, knockouts, and hiding bodies wasted! 4 Changed abilities: - limited ammo but enemies drop a lot - all characters can knock people out but only some can tie them. - Mia is MIA - Cooper's QuickTime fast-shooting is gone. His watch is useless. - Kate: main abilities have been reduced to seduction and fainting! And they don't work half the time. She often needs to hit twice for a knockout. Blind powder blinds indefinitely. - Sam: no snake. No stationary Gatling guns. - Doc: no balloons. But KO gas is long lasting. - Sanchez: powerful KO but can't pick up 2 bodies. 3rd person mode required for Gatling gun. 5 the ambient noise, voices, music and character voice over are extremely annoying during the mission. 6 I'm many missions in but the new character has just now become available. The ugly: - the maps - few creative solutions on missions

After buying and playing the first Desperados, I was really looking forward to the sequel, but boy, was I disappointed! Desperados 1 was a really good game, graphically stunning with great controls. Desperados 2 is the exact opposite. The controls and map-layout have been changed, and not for the better. The controls feel all wrong and sometimes you have to repeat the same command four or five times before the character actually does what you want it to do. The map layout is confusing and nothing like the clear tactical map in the first installment. Don't spend your money on this game, just play Desperados 1 a second time!!!

Haven't gotten too far into the game, because I just couldn't keep at it. Clunky controls. You can't even use the middle mouse button or the wheel. And there is no hot key to fire your weapon (what if I didn't want to use the left mouse button?). The first guy you have to kill, you have to dump the body behind a wagon to "hide it". Nevermind that you have to walk through a crowd of people to do so. And then, I couldn't figure out how to drop the body (again, no hot key). The pathing AI is horrible (getting stuck on anything in their path). About the only thing good I can say about this game, is the graphics are pretty darn good, considering it's age.

Bought this as a pack together with Desperados 1 and Helldorado, after discovering the magnificent Shadow Tactics, moving to Aikos Choice and finally completing Commandos 1 after all those years. Plan was to play through all games and then hop onto the Desperados 3 train, once all DLCs are out and there's a reasonable bundle for all of it (demo is great). I quite like the genre...after neglecting it for so long! Good Lord, what a waste of time and money Desperados 2 actually is. Controls are UTTER trash. In tactical (overview) mode one needs to shift view every so often which is terribly awkward, and in first person mode (yes, "ATI/AMD cards are not supported" - I got one), FPS drop down below 5 when facing the open world. Voice acting is bad (and not in a good way like Sanchez in the predecessor), general graphics and style are questionable, loading levels and quickloading takes considerable time (on a machine that came out 15 years after game release). AI is super dumb as is clear from the first interaction. There's cheesy music again, that's alright though. I haven't even completed the first level, the clunky controls plus the laggy execution of actions is just abhorrent. This would be bad as a tech demo for funding or even an early beta, but apparently this was a full-price game and GOG got the enhanced version. Mind blowing. Stay away, buy Desperados 1 or 3 instead.

Well, I know it hast its flaws, most of all the silly 3D, which ist mostly unuseful. Still, if you love the genre, you will love it.