Helldorado Review (LesMisharable)
If you have played Desperados Wanted Dead or Alive and the disappointment that was Desperados 2, Helldorado wraps things up pretty nicely!
The good:
1. Bug fixes: Helldorado makes a lot of improvements to Desperados 2
2. 3rd person shooter mode is still fun and feels essential for some missions.
3. Combos! There are several fun actions that combine different skills of characters together. Example: Dynamite arrows!
4. There is a tutorial that goes over some of the new and old features.
5. An improvement from Desperados 2 is that some of the maps actually feel like stealth puzzles rather than a tedious game of "knock enemies out and hide bodies." Those missions or parts of missions were very satisfying the first time around.
6. You are given a 2 statement review of how well you played: one based on if you were shot or not and another based on how many times you were spotted (I think).
7. It's pretty!
Some good and bad changes to abilities compared to Desperados 1:
- There are no more houses that you could disappear into in D1. The cross-section is shown for all the accessible buildings.
- no gatling guns
- limited ammo but enemies drop a lot
- all characters can knock people out but only some can tie them.
- Mia is MIA. Instead, you get Hawk Eye, a Native American.
- Cooper's Quick-Action fast-shooting is gone.
- Kate's main abilities have been reduced to seduction and fainting. These seldom work on enemies. She is severely physically weakened. Her powerful kick was removed in Desperados 2 in favor of 2 punch knockouts (first punch stuns, second punch knocks out for a short time). In Helldorado, her punches have no effect at all on the larger enemies. (I did find a good use for the "stun" on her solo mission though. Once.) She also has a make up powder that blinds enemies indefinitely but other enemies don't notice.
- Sam: The snake is replaced by cans of nitroglycerin (mines) which are loud.
- Doc: no balloons. But KO gas is permanent until woken up by others.
- Sanchez: powerful KO but can't pick up 2 bodies. No more siestas. No more multi-enemy KO.
- Hawkeye: Probably the most fun character to play because of his stealthy movement, silent (limited) arrows and the ability to fully restore the health for all allies in a large area (which makes doc's First Aid look like a joke). However, his "war cry" is made even more useless in Helldorado. And he is only available for a very few missions.
The bad:
1. bugs:
- the gold awards for completing missions in "desperados" difficulty are sometimes not awarded, or they disappear.
- some knocked out enemies may ragdoll and fly away
- characters may not respond to click commands
- the maps are a little difficult to view in wide screen
- I needed to play it in "compatibility mode for Windows Vista" to get it to work.
2. Tedium:
- some maps repeat between missions. Same starting point but the difference is that you have to enter a different building. But it's not as bad as Desperados 2.
3. the cycling ambient noise, voices, music and character voice-overs can get annoying during the missions.
The ugly:
- stays true to the racist portrayals of Native Americans in Wild West Movies.
- few creative solutions on missions