Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive Review (Ajantis)
Desperados is a classic. Made in 2001, it is along Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines a pioneer of the real time tactical genre.
Just as Commandos, Desperados is a very hard, unforgiving game, in which you must study each mission very thoroughly if you want to succeed. That means taking your time to learn the patterns of the enemies, their line of sight, the best part of the map to start taking enemies out, the best sequence of action...etc....etc.
You have 25 challenging missions, . The first few are easy, but then it gets proggressively harder.
Keep in mind that only in a few missons you can charge openly with guns blazing, in most of them you are encouraged to go stealth, to lure them somewhere and to kill them 1 by 1. You can't trigger the alarm because of various reasons, the biggest being quickly overwhelmed by too many guards.
You are in command of a small group of charachters, each with his/her own unique skills and weapons.
Basically it is just a matter of trying and re-trying again and again untill you succeed in killing that specific guard, or that specific cluster of guards......
But, on the other hand, you will feel a great sense of accomplishment when you manage to beat the game.
I'm a fan of isometric graphics, especially when the environment is detailed and beautiful like in this game.
The soundtrack could be better and more epic, the cutscenes are ok for 2001. The story is a standard western plot.
So, this is withouth doubt a quality game, as most of the games from the beginning of the 2000's were.
A serious, straight-to-the-point, complete gaming experience.
Buy if you like tactical games and if you are up for a challenge.