Desperados 3

[DANGERMAN]

I've been meaning to pick up Desperados 3 for ages and I'm glad I did because it really is very good. It's one of those games where it probably plays like a thousand other games but I couldn't give you one as a reference point, other than Desperados 1&2 presumably. 

 

It's a strategy game, mostly real time. You make your way though the level, which may be fairly open with multiple objectives that can be done in any order, or just a straight line, like the first level. Enemies have lines of sight, you can hide in cover, and your skills have a bit of a cool down. 

 

You don't get all the characters at once, you're drip fed them as you play through the stages and so far they've been bouncing in and out. They are all unique but all have similar moves. The main guy can throw his knife from distance, the doctor has a sniper rifle. The doctor can drop his bag which gets most enemy types to walk over and examine it, the brute has a bear trap and can whistle to trick people in to coming over, similarly the main guy can toss a coin to get people to look a certain direction. There's a bride to play as too but I've literally just started that level. 

 

You can freeze to and cue up attacks that will launch simultaneously. You can do these with just 1 characters or with all. For example, the main character has 2 guns, I've not been using them much because they make noise, but if you did you could pause time and use both pistols, maybe while the doctors takes out a 3rd character. Or maybe you use it to launch a melee attack as a door is opened 

 

The levels are long, long enough that one a night seems to be about what you can expect, at least the way I'm playing. There's a few quirks to the game, enough that you should really take the games advice and save all the time 

[DANGERMAN]

Still playing this and still really enjoying it, it's definitely in the top 10 games I've played this year as things stand, but a few niggles have started to show themselves.

 

The most common one, and this might be user error rather than anything else tbf, maybe something they haven't idiot proofed, when you're switching between characters, particularly as you've reloaded. It is very, very easy and common to perform one action with a character, go to switch to another, but end up moving the first one again, either cancelling the action or just walking them out in to the open. Similarly if you go to move a character, select somewhere for them to move to, then switch to another character while they trundle about rather than watch over them, they can have a habit of taking the worst possible route. Rather than the way you've just cleared, they'll instead open a door and cut through an area full of enemies.

 

It can be a bit fiddly too, trying to pick up a body and dump it in a bush. if the angle of your camera is such that you're looking through a box or something, the game will ignore that there's a bush there even though it's highlighted. Queuing up attacks on a group of enemies has a couple of times meant me selecting the same enemy twice, meaning the one I've missed raises the alarm, again caused by the transparency issue.

 

In terms of level structure, they're quite long and multi-layered, which is cool, but you can see how they set up encounters. Even in open areas you can sense a kind of "box"  around groups of enemies. It's the right way to do it, this isn't a complaint, just mentioning it to set up a point. It goes from you feeling quite smart, like you've spotted the solution, to feeling like the game is just making it as awkward as possible. Certain characters can't do certain things, so some can't climb vines and ropes, the only way in to an area will be vines and ropes. You'll see an enemy you need to take out to progress, but he's being watched by someone else, who is being watched by someone else and so on. They're all doable, but it feels less like a puzzle and more like you gaming the situation sometimes.

 

There's a few sections I've beat and felt like it can't possibly be the way they intended for it to be done. It results in you taking advantage of the dumb AI, using the same trick over and over. Like using Hector's bear trap, whistle, enemy walks in to it, which raises the alarm, you wait, they calm down, you lay the bear trap again, whistle, different enemy walks in to it, gets spotted which raises the alarm, and so on. At that point you aren't being tested, you've solved it, you're just grinding it out

 

Again, to stress, I'm really enjoying it, it's just as I've played more there's more to critique