Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive is the first strategy game ever to combine a movie-based and story-driven atmosphere of an adventure game with the intellectual challenge of a real time tactic game.
In this western-style title, discover a game of strategy and tactics played out in exceptional rea...
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive is the first strategy game ever to combine a movie-based and story-driven atmosphere of an adventure game with the intellectual challenge of a real time tactic game.
In this western-style title, discover a game of strategy and tactics played out in exceptional real time. You're in charge of a team of 6 mercenaries and must find a way to complete your missions, be it infiltrating an enemy fortress, saving a team member or escaping an ambush... Combine the different skills of your 6 heroes to lead them to victory.
The Story
El Paso, a typical Wild West town in the southwestern United States near the Mexican border. It is the year 1881. For the last few months, the trains belonging to the famous railroad company, Twinnings & Co have been the target of a whole series of hold-ups and ambushes. The management of the company has decided enough is enough and they have to put an end to the raids. It has offered a reward of $15,000 for anyone who captures the leader of the gang responsible.
But no one in and around El Paso has the courage to take on the might of the bandidos, so the outlaws just keep on robbing train after train. Even the local Marshal is keeping well out of it.
It’s only when a stranger rides into town that things start to change. Bounty hunter John Cooper pays a visit to the local Twinnings & Co manager offering to end the railroad company’s problems once and for all. He gathers together a gang of his old partners and declares war on the bandidos. But during his pursuit, which will take him through half of the southwestern United States, Cooper soon discovers that on this mission nothing is quite what it seems...
More than 20 enemies with different profiles, from the lazy and cowardly bandit, to the fearsome mercenary.
A team of 6 characters, each with their own very distinct characteristics, to manage in real-time.
25 different levels provide nail-biting intrigue, with cinematic transition scenes and landscapes that will take your breath away. Amazing artificial intelligence!
Each enemy is ranked on 10 different criteria, including intelligence, courage, marksmanship, resistance to alcohol, etc.
An array of different settings: day-time, night-time, storms, dusk, villages, ghost towns, fortresses, gold mines, saloons, prisons, boats 6 training levels to allow the player to really get into the story
This game brings back so many memories from my childhood. The graphics are still pretty decent, thanks to the pixelesque style used. The characters are memorable and each has it's own perks. The most fun I had was trying different strategies to get through the levels as stealthy as possible. Too bad there was never a worthy sequel to this game, as they went full 3D, which broke the immersion for me.
For an old game, it plays very sluggishly on my super fast high end PC. It always sucks when you put money down on a really old game and expect to get some good gaming only to be disappointed in the compatibility with newer hardware
If you were to play only 5 'retro' games in your life, this one should be on your list. It holds amazingly well (I played it for the first time only recently). Sure, low resolution, jumpy animations and being 2D, without a possibility or rotating or even often going behind things, distinctly remind you this isn't a modern game, but it makes up for it in quality, oh what quality!
Characters, while partly following the mechanical archetypes set by Commandos and thematic archetypes set by spaghetti westerns, are more varied and cooperation between them is much more important. Above all, you can finally chain multiple actions to be triggered independently with each character, which gives that 'heist' film feeling. I actually got to like some of them, which for an RTS game two decades old is quite uncommon. But were this game shines and distinguishes itself among peers, is level design.
They come of as wonderful, intelligent puzzles with multiple solutions, and while the game is hard and very unforgiving, none of my deaths felt unfair.T he locations are really beautifully drawn and cover all typical tropes you could associate with 'old west' films, down to the classic train station shootout, so while mechanically you are essentially doing the same thing again and again - carefully taking off a couple o dozens of enemies one by one utilising various tricks - they offer a quite decent variability, especially in layout and objectives - bank robbing, prison breaking, pueblo infiltrating, you name it. Unlike in Commandos, thanks in part to the story (absurdly cliche, but there), I always had a desire to play the next level, rather than leave the game for a couple of days.
Nowadays, I typically play games in short bouts when I just need to take my time off and few titles grab my attention for a long time at an end, let alone give the satisfaction of watching a masterpiece of a film, but Desperados was an exception.
Welcome to the wild west. You have different characters with different tricks. Everyone should be used at the right time because trying for a rampage is absolutely deadly. This game takes a lot of your tactical skills and improvisation. You have one goal and a lot of time for experiments to reach it. But you should be aware of a lot try and error (and dying). The maps are in 2D and lovely designed with impressive details. Also the voice actors made a good job, there are some bad surprises in the missions and the atmosphere is brought to you unforgotten. Only the long tutorials and missing possibility to skip scenes is strenious. Also the story is an absolute typical clichee. But who wanna play an interesting story, when you have a game kicking your mind in case you aren't totally aware of it?
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