Erebus
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2008
- Messages
- 4,763
I've just finished Desperados and I feel like posting a bit about it. It's a pretty entertaining game, rather difficult at times, but seldom repetitive. The AI is pretty good for a 2001 game. While it is set in the Western genre, being very quick with a gun isn't enough to win even easy missions ! It's definitely a strategy game, where you'll have to plan the way you take care of every enemy. That being said, being quick and precise with your mouse helps a lot ! It's a pity the game didn't think of using a BG-like pause, during which it would be possible to give orders to your whole team. As it is, you can't control several characters at the same time very efficiently.
The story's pretty simple : there's a bunch of bandits robbing trains in New Mexico (or maybe Louisiana, I'm not too clear on the subject) and you need to put an end to it. Your hero and first character is John Cooper, a Captain Ersatz of the Man with no Name. His first three missions will be to get three of his pals to give him a hand (but first, you'll have to save them from the shitty situations they all managed to get themselves into). They're Samuel, a black dude with a fetish for explosives ; Doc, a grumpy, one-eyed older guy ; and Kate, whose greatest pleasures in life are playing cards and kicking men in the balls.
Much later in the game, you'll recruit Sanchez, a fat and extremely strong mexican bandit, and Mia, a chinese jailb... young woman who's totally 18. Obviously, Desperados is trying hard to be diverse (if I remember correctly, the sequel replaces Mia with an Indian).
Each of the characters has specific skills that can be used to kill, neutralize or confuse the enemies. Quite a few rely on items that are available only in (very) limited supplies : Sam's dynamite, Doc's sleeping gas and sniper bullets, Mia's firecrackers and even Sanchez' stupid (but very useful) rocks. On the other hand, while you definitely need to reload your guns, your characters carry an apparently unlimited quantity of ammo on them (except, amusingly, in the very last mission).
Some of the skills are extremely useful and some not so much (I don't think I found Sam's snake really useful more than twice in the entire game). The skills meant to confuse tend to get less useful with time, as the enemies you meet become smarter. All skills, however, are very much circumstancial.
Being seen and being heard are the two biggest issues in the game. In fact, you'll often feel like you're playing one of the Thief games. In most missions, you'll use silent weapons such as Cooper's knife and Kate's kick much more often than their guns. (Sam's can be especially useless in some missions since his best skills are pretty loud.)
There are 25 missions, six of which are simple tutorials meant to illustrate the characters' skills (embarrassingly enough, it's quite possible to die in some of them). The goals are pretty diverse, although in most cases you'll have to kill at least 3/4 of all the enemies present to succeed. The maps offer a lot of possibilities, but they nevertheless tend to be a bit linear when you need to get from A to B.
The scenario is nothing very impressive (not that it really matters, of course). Cooper's gift for hatching uselessly complicated and dangerous plans is the only reason for several of the missions. The team commits so many crimes (killing federal soldiers, breaking into a prison and killing most of the guards, robbing a bank...) that the best reward they could hope for after putting an end to the bandits is a presidential pardon.
The game's fairly difficult. There are a lot of enemies, they're pretty quick with the trigger and a single shot can be enough to kill one of your characters (which means game over). The AI's rather good, although it becomes less impressive once you've more or less figured it out. Some especially difficult situations (for instance, when I had to rescue a teammate surrounded by enemies whose first reaction to my arrival would be to kill him) required me to reload a lot !
All in all, a very entertaining game. I'll check the posts about the sequels (Cooper's Revenge and Helldorado, if I'm not mistaken) to get some opinions about what they're worth.
The story's pretty simple : there's a bunch of bandits robbing trains in New Mexico (or maybe Louisiana, I'm not too clear on the subject) and you need to put an end to it. Your hero and first character is John Cooper, a Captain Ersatz of the Man with no Name. His first three missions will be to get three of his pals to give him a hand (but first, you'll have to save them from the shitty situations they all managed to get themselves into). They're Samuel, a black dude with a fetish for explosives ; Doc, a grumpy, one-eyed older guy ; and Kate, whose greatest pleasures in life are playing cards and kicking men in the balls.
Much later in the game, you'll recruit Sanchez, a fat and extremely strong mexican bandit, and Mia, a chinese jailb... young woman who's totally 18. Obviously, Desperados is trying hard to be diverse (if I remember correctly, the sequel replaces Mia with an Indian).
Each of the characters has specific skills that can be used to kill, neutralize or confuse the enemies. Quite a few rely on items that are available only in (very) limited supplies : Sam's dynamite, Doc's sleeping gas and sniper bullets, Mia's firecrackers and even Sanchez' stupid (but very useful) rocks. On the other hand, while you definitely need to reload your guns, your characters carry an apparently unlimited quantity of ammo on them (except, amusingly, in the very last mission).
Some of the skills are extremely useful and some not so much (I don't think I found Sam's snake really useful more than twice in the entire game). The skills meant to confuse tend to get less useful with time, as the enemies you meet become smarter. All skills, however, are very much circumstancial.
Being seen and being heard are the two biggest issues in the game. In fact, you'll often feel like you're playing one of the Thief games. In most missions, you'll use silent weapons such as Cooper's knife and Kate's kick much more often than their guns. (Sam's can be especially useless in some missions since his best skills are pretty loud.)
There are 25 missions, six of which are simple tutorials meant to illustrate the characters' skills (embarrassingly enough, it's quite possible to die in some of them). The goals are pretty diverse, although in most cases you'll have to kill at least 3/4 of all the enemies present to succeed. The maps offer a lot of possibilities, but they nevertheless tend to be a bit linear when you need to get from A to B.
The scenario is nothing very impressive (not that it really matters, of course). Cooper's gift for hatching uselessly complicated and dangerous plans is the only reason for several of the missions. The team commits so many crimes (killing federal soldiers, breaking into a prison and killing most of the guards, robbing a bank...) that the best reward they could hope for after putting an end to the bandits is a presidential pardon.
The game's fairly difficult. There are a lot of enemies, they're pretty quick with the trigger and a single shot can be enough to kill one of your characters (which means game over). The AI's rather good, although it becomes less impressive once you've more or less figured it out. Some especially difficult situations (for instance, when I had to rescue a teammate surrounded by enemies whose first reaction to my arrival would be to kill him) required me to reload a lot !
All in all, a very entertaining game. I'll check the posts about the sequels (Cooper's Revenge and Helldorado, if I'm not mistaken) to get some opinions about what they're worth.