izigame.me

This is one of those "I wish there was a middle option on steam reviews" moments because while I do recommend Wanted:Dead I do so both with the warning that I don't recommend it at full price (£50 as of writing) and that it's honestly not that good of a game... kind of.... Wanted:Dead is weird in a lot of ways xD
I guess the best way to describe it is as one of those weird Xbox 360/PS3 cult classics that everyone kind of forgot about at the time but then years later some people who played it when they were younger have some fond memories about it so occasionally bring it up in conversation again but then they never really go back to replaying it so all their memories of why it's good are a bit rose-tinted and sanded down after like 15 years... You know the kind of thing I'm talking about right?
It's not very well optimised, the gameplay is jank, the acting is really awkward and poorly sound balanced, the story is both really simple and yet told in a way that is often just unclear and confusing. It's often got frustrating checkpoint placements, not very good boss fights, a weird karaoke minigame that lets you play "99 Luftballons" and nothing else; the game is meant to be a hybrid hack 'n' slash and 3rd person shooter but the sword-fighting sometime makes the camera go insane and then the aim assist occasionally aims to the right of the target and doesn't let you move it left... This game is sometimes genuinely terrible.
And yet it's oddly nostalgic and charming; those moments where it works are really satisfying, the cutscenes are so weird that they're just fun to watch and laugh at with mates, and then out of nowhere there's like 2 or 3 moments where the quality of the storytelling skyrockets and does something really interesting before immediately crashing down again (nightclub cutscene, I'm looking at you!), without spoiling it I'll just say if you stick around for the post-credits scene it genuinely makes the story way more interesting than it has any right to be and I wish they went with that angle of the story way more than they do.
Wanted:Dead is so weird but it's also something that isn't devoid of good ideas; it often feels like the product of something more ambitious being cut down in many ways (some of the adverts for the game give far more details and story to the world than the entire game does...Not joking, if you go on the "110 Industries" channel and watch the "game world overview trailer", "Vivienne's Late Night Chow", and "She works hard for the money" you will know more about the world and some of the characters than the game itself will ever tell you, it's genuinely bizarre). But I can't deny that the moments where this game gets it together for 10 seconds to show you some absolutely crazy finisher animation or giving you a level with enough cover in it that you can actually avoid gunfire consistently to eliminate individual targets with your sword is kind of awesome; there's a world out there where this game was amazing, we don't live in that world but... I honestly hope the devs try again, I genuinely want a sequel because there is absolutely something here that you only get to see glimpses of while playing.
Wanted:Dead is not a great game...
But I found my time playing it ultimately a net positive, it is not a strong recommendation, but for all of its problems, I think there are others out there who will find some odd nostalgic charm in this thing, not despite the flaws but instead because of them, and for those like me who'll have that experience, just know that you are about to hear Herzog shout "grenade!" a lot.... Enjoy :)