Desperados III

If you consider the game by itself, it is a super awesome se(pre-)quel to the Desperados franchise. Though there is some criticism from my side (later). If you have played the also awesome Shadow Tactics before, you might notice, that it is basically just a reskin. Of course that does not make the game worse, but it shows, that the devs did not really have the guts to develop further what they did before. The only really new mechanics has Isabelle, but there are no new enemies (except you count female enemies as "new") or e.g. cooperative abilities. Now to the constructive criticism: - Player characters do not make noises while running. I totally accept sneaking as a silent tool. But running past some guards without them noticing, while slowly carrying a body makes noise, feels wrong. - I personally do not like the completely binary view cone (at least distance-wise). It makes the game easier to read, but I would like to have some kind of transition area that interpolates the perception speed. - It might be a design choice, but the AI is a little bit too static. If I distract the same enemy five times in a row with a coin, he should at least go searching a bit or start ignoring it. Hectors whistle does this in a way, but it's the only one. - Three of the five characters have a heal skill, which is, in my opinion, not really useful. Either you play for stealth, avoiding being shot at (which is probably the most common way) rendering heals useless, or you play gun-heavy where you either draw faster than your opponents or die by two shots, making heals highly situational. I think giving Doc the only heal-skill (replacing the other two with useful ones) and distributing heals in crates around a map would be nicer. At this point I wondered, why Isabelles mind control uses 1 HP if she can heal it up infinitely anyway. Still AWESOME! Go buy it, of you havent already to support the devs and give us more of this.

I had a solid 30 hours of fun. Played on Hard mode without any problems. I didn't like the story much, but maybe that's because I never felt any connection to the characters. Nice music and overall sound design. Gameplay just as fun as Shadow Tactics was. Can't wait for the next game in this style.

You should know that from this genre I played Robin Hood like 15 years ago and haven't played a game like this ever after that (ok, maybe XCOM, but that is still a different case). So I was a little bit nervous to pay 50€ for a Desperados 3. But it rewarded me dearly in any way possible. So if you're like me - reading all reviews and watching gameplays... believe me, just do it. You'll get strong characters, humour, plenty of variety (even though only in terms of locations - the basic idea of a mission is always the same). Sometimes you feel like you're in the dead end... but suddenly you start to see a possible path. The satisfaction after effectively clearing an area is not easily explained by word. You just need to expirience it. Trust me, that you money will be well spent with this game. And since you can get it DRM Free on GOG, there is another reason to buy it. Sometimes I just have a feeling not many AAA games are available on GOG, so let's show them we appreciate everyone who have the balls.

I did not play any old Desperados games, but I played many many ours of Shadow Tactics. So I was looking forward do Desperados a lot. The game is a stealth game based on the gameplay of the Commandos series. First of, it is a very good game. The beginning plays a lot like a reskinned Shadow Tactics, Mimimis last game before Desperados. And I thought would "only" give this game 4/5 stars (Still very good). But after the introductory missions, Mimimi shows that they could build on top of Shadow Tactics and produce an even more polished experience. Personally I like the settings and characters of Shadow Tactics more. But objectively Desperados is probably the better game. For the price you get a lot of content. Just the base game will take you many hours to finish. And if you try to do the challenges there are many more hours to put into this gem. I highly recommend it.

This is not a flawless game but it is definitely a great game to shake things up a bit from other titles with more run-of-the-mill gameplay. PROS: -Showdown Mechanic can have you coordinating a bloody spectacle with your squad taking down several enemies in a flash. It adds a sense of fast-paced action in an otherwise slow and methodical game. -Characters all felt unique with neat quirks to their gameplans -Levels were all clearly thought out and there is always a solution despite the trickiest circumstances CONS: -Sometimes the quicksave doesn't quite revert you to your last save (so you end up dragging your characters into position again to figure out what went wrong) -Sometimes objects in the game can overlap a bit a make for some confusing moments for your character (sometimes getting you spotted) OVERALL: If you are looking for an interesting and deeply tactical stealth game this just might do the trick. Definitely worth wishlisting at the very least.