Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive Preview

If you had visited our site this summer you probably noticed an article dealing with ActionTrip's most wanted games for this year, and you also probably noticed I had a thing for commandos. The author of the article (properly?) described me as someone who'd "probably sell his younger sister to a band of gypsies if it would mean getting to beta-test Commandos 2. Poor younger sister..." What a disgrace! He laments the fortunes of my younger sister rather then my perils! And I haven't even come close to Beta testing the game! Though, I'm considering revising the offer: If somebody acquired me a beta copy of the Desperados, we might be looking in for a deal there. Hmmm, let's see...

Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive (previously called Desperados: The Shadow of El Diablo) is much like the Pyro Studio's game that kept me going all summer of 98. The German group Spellbound is developing it. But instead of tempering with the WWII subject, they decided to change time and location. The first announcements and screenshots came a couple of months ago only to show us that the story takes place on wild west and that the game still look a lot like Commandos. Ugh, I'm going to try to stop using the word Commandos from this point on; otherwise, my chances of getting a playable beta-version of Desperados are null.

First things first, I must say I'm surprised that there are relatively few games nowadays set in the Wild West, especially after so many good western movies that marked the early decades of the Hollywood production. The only titles that spring to mind are: Wild Wild West, Outlaws, Data Becker's America and Desperados (ValuSoft's game with the same name)...

But, let's get back to the not-over-elaborate plot. Our courageous hero called John Cooper is a professional bounty hunter bent on catching the famous Mexican bandit, El Diablo. Cooper will start his real-time tactical adventure on his own, and eventually gather the rest of the party. Once the party is complete, the six desperados will have to crawl, climb and ride through levels, and stay alive until they capture El Diablo. The levels are highly detailed and completely in 2D. Cities will be crammed with well-known buildings like saloons, shops, stables, barbers' shops, pueblos, churches and blacksmiths, and the streets will be crowded with passers by. When outside cities you will stumble upon ranches, fields of cotton, canyons, gold mines, waterfalls, and camps, all of them followed by authentic background music. Unfortunately, all these locations have a sinnister side to them... And as our hero does have sort of an awkward occupation, the inhabitants of places you visit won't actually react to him with outbursts of love and nymphomania (Outbursts of what?? - Ed). There are altogether 25 kinds of marshals, sheriffs, Mexican bandits, smugglers, and other villains that will try to stuff our hero full of led. Now if you add a great number of (non-aggressive) civilians and animals to what I already described, you should be able to picture what the game is going to look like.

Unlike Commandos (oooops, I said it again) (Yeah, your're a regular Britney Spears, man! -Ed) the in-game surroundings should be completely interactive; the developers said that should increase the number of tactical possibilities. A lot of building will feature special functions; for instance, you'll be able to get into a house, take a saddle and saddle a horse, or even sabotage some buildings. All characters will be capable of performing all common tasks, and each of them will have a certain specialty, or at least be strong enough to carry large objects and bodies. That means that we'll have a lot of tactical solutions to each level, just like in Commandos (Screw it, no use trying).

Cooper, being the toughest of the lot, will have a lot of special capabilities: he's got the quickest hand on his revolvers, and he's the only one who can disable enemies barehanded. He also carries a knife around, with which he can cut ropes and so on - in a word he is what Tiny was in Commandos. Then, there's Sam-the-louder-the-better demolition man. Doc is another useful character. He is there to heal the desperados, but he's also quite dangerous because he always likes to have some hand-made knockout gas on him. And if we disregard other characters (a weird chinaman with an insane monkey, Inigo Sanchez, the hired gunman...), the male players will certainly favor the beautiful and dangerous Kate O'Hara (No realtion to Scarlet I guess -Ed). Kate is a professional gambler, but some of her other assets will prove crucial when the situation requires diverting enemies' attention. Kate will simply stand in front of them, raise her skirt and start fiddling with her garter. You can well imagine if the enemy is to stay cool to that performance.

The tactical approach will have to be based on avoiding the enemies' line-of-site, just like it was in Commandos ;). On the other hand, the enemy is here much more sensitive to noise, and they will be able to hear even your footsteps. Apart from the weaponry typical for the period like Winchesters, Peacemakers, knives and dynamite the game will also feature some "chemical" weaponry and several other tiny gadgets with different surprise effects. John Cooper has a musical watch with a timer, which attracts enemies, and Sam carries a viper in his pocket.

There will be altogether 24 missions with accompanying FMV sequences. The first six missions will be a sort of a tutorial in which you will have to get around to finding and rescuing your other team members, and get to know their abilities. Once you did that, the real challenge starts! The game will feature daytime and nighttime missions (I wander why Pyro never thought of that). Some missions will even take place during a storm. All this will affect gameplay; for instance: the enemies' line-of-sight will be shorter in a night-mission, but their hearing will improve.

There. I eagerly await the Desperados. Commandos 2 definitely got some nice competition...