Commandos-Like Desperados III from Mimimi Productions (Shadow Tactics devs) - now with Money for the Vultures DLC

[ERYFKRAD]

Oh fuck off, that trailer looks good.

The trailer is fine, it's the articles that suck rancid double dumbass donkey balls.

 

[catfood]

Shadow Tactics was good so I'm fabulously optimistic about this one.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/using-stealth-dynamite-and-magic-murder-bags-in-desperados-3/

Desperados 3 brings real time tactics and magic murder bags to the Old West
The long dormant real time tactics series gets a revival.

Bless you, Desperados 3, for having a gentle prompt appear on screen every so often reminding me of the last time I've saved my game. I'm not great at tactical games, so I'm taking great swaths of time in Desperados 3 to carefully put my characters in place and spring my traps, and when my plan goes awry—which has happened several times now—it's a real ballache to start from my last save and re-position everyone all over again.

I'm controlling Desperado mainstay Cooper in this demo, who has a throwable Bowie knife, dual pistols, and the ability to toss a coin to use as a distraction or lure. I'm also controlling Cooper's new acquaintance, Doc McCoy, who has a medical bag he can place as a flash-bang trap (just go with it), a poison syringe for stealth kills, and a sniper rifle for taking out distant targets. I'm slowly—very slowly—working my way to the front of a train that's been stalled by a gang of what feels like a hundred bandits, and taking them out—when I don't muck it up—a few at a time.

This revival of the Desperados series is being led by Mimimi Productions, developer of Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, and it certainly shows. Fans of Shadow Tactics will feel right at home, the samurai and ninja being replaced by cowboys and 1850's New Mexico subbing in for Edo period Japan.

I can't say from this demo if it's as hard as Shadow Tactics, which was notoriously difficult, but I do feel challenged, especially this early on in the game. I'm only controlling the two characters at the moment—I'm told at points players will control up to five characters at once—but I already feel like I've got my hands full. This is a big, big level, and there are scores of bandits. When things go sideways, such as when I've misjudged a bandit's cone of vision or hadn't noticed one just in earshot of my latest noisy kill, it feels like the entire gang comes running and quickly put and end to Cooper and Doc. This isn't a game I'll be iron-manning. I need that 'reload last save' button. I might even wear it out.

I do, eventually, manage to get Cooper and Doc to the front of the train. Sometimes it's a matter of luring someone close to Doc with a coin toss and giving him a lethal injection from the safety of a shrub. Sometimes it's a matter of scheduling both characters movements and actions and letting them play out simultaneously to take out a crowd. Cooper will drop two with his pistol while Doc snipes a lookout, just as another reaches Doc's dropped magic murder bag and opens it, getting a face-full of flash, stunning him long enough for Cooper to knife him. As much as I muck things up, I love it when a plan comes together.

At the end of the train level, having finally taken out the bandit boss, there's some extremely cathartic action. I use dynamite to destroy the rubble that the bandits used to force the train to stop at the mouth of the tunnel. The explosion brings the remainder of the gang running, and while I leave Doc McCoy safely crouching in a bush while I direct Cooper as he flings stick after stick of dynamite at the approaching bandit mob. It's a satisfying change from the slow creeping, meticulous planning and quiet skulduggery I've been using for the entire train level. It's been fun using careful tactics to get this far, but sometimes it's better to just throw dynamite at your problems.

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like no one yet bothered to upload this 7 minute gameplay video on Youtube:
https://media.thqnordic.com/?dir=Desperados_III/B-Roll

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Gah!
It's prequel.

 

[Zombra]

Gah!
It's prequel.

What's wrong with prequels? If nothing else, it explains why Cooper doesn't have his magic pocketwatch yet

Still, it makes me more disappointed that we won't be seeing Sam. As much as Desperados is about Cooper reconnecting with various old friends, I always felt like Sam was his longest-standing partner.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

What's wrong with prequels?

I pretty much despise those as fan-fiction pieces.

 

[GloomFrost]

OK Who's idea was it to use that horrible nigga rap in the game about wild west also the hand drawn 2d maps of the first game look a lot more detailed, sharp compared to that screenshot above look at that blurry rock and cactus!!!

 

[Zombra]

What's wrong with prequels?

I pretty much despise those as fan-fiction pieces.

I can see that, but I feel the same way about sequels, if written by a different author (and sometimes by the same author). Shadow Tactics was already a love letter to Desperados in everything but story specifics, and the tone was note-perfect imo. I'm very comfortable with Mimimi going for it and directly writing new material for the original cast.

OK Who's idea was it to use that horrible nigga rap in the game about wild west

Hopefully this is a simple case of "traileritis" which will not in any way be reflected in the actual game. Hopefully.

 

[HansDampf]

Looks very noisy with all the flashing prompts.

 

[Harry Easter]

Still, it makes me more disappointed that we won't be seeing Sam. As much as Desperados is about Cooper reconnecting with various old friends, I always felt like Sam was his longest-standing partner.

True. Sam in part 1 was the best. Not so much in part 2, but that never existed. Maybe he will get a cameo?

 

[Lemming42]

I hope it's still possible to sneak and KO/tie up most enemies. Gameplay video seems really killing heavy. I know it's virtually the same gameplay-wise, but I always really liked the added challenge of having to get Sam over to people to tie them up, and having Cooper just repeatedly beat the shit out of people who were close to waking up to keep them down until they could be dealt with.

Plus it was really satisfying to beat the later levels without any fatalities, even if you basically just had to cheat by having Sanchez stand in a shed and get everyone to run in one by one until every enemy unit on the map was lying unconscious in a pile outside the door.

 

[Zombra]

I hope it's still possible to sneak and KO/tie up most enemies.

Give up hope now. Mimimi did a great job bringing back the Desperados gameplay loop for Shadow Tactics, but they were completely blind to the fun of a nonlethal approach. There wasn't even a way to "tie up" KO'd enemies ... you either killed them or they eventually got up and sounded the alarm, period.

EDIT: I spoke too soon, see below.

 

[Darth Roxor]

There was no "additional challenge" in going non-lethal in Desperados, and Sanchez in fact made that approach easier than lethal, and not just because of clearing out sheds.

 

[Darth Roxor]

You are welcome to come over and disagree verbally with me Goral instead of sticking hieroglyphics up my ass like a troglodyte.

 

[Goral]

Firstly, have you finished Desperados going non-lethal way (all the way, besides the last 1-2 missions)? If not your claim is doubly retarded.

Secondly, Sanchez isn't god-like, he could have thrown out enemies only if there were no more than 3 at one time so for that to work one had to do some work on the map anyway (especially at later stages where there were tons of enemies). Not to mention that often to reach a building where you could use this ability you had to face enemies anyway. Often it was faster to just hide from them and go further than trying to dispose of everyone and during non-lethal playthrough I've rarely used it.

Thirdly, the fact alone that KO-ed enemies would stand up after a while added quite a bit of challenge, especially in missions where Sam was unavailable.

Fourthly, there were quite a few missions where you had to make do with Cooper only, which meant that for non-lethal approach you had to be at point blank range to punch. Try to do this in this mission (Sanchez's fortress or whatever it was called):



Fifthly, going Rambo ALWAYS worked. Always (well, if you want to go technical there was or were missions where you weren't allowed to kill so guns could be used only to lure enemies). And was much faster and easier, Sanchez or no Sanchez. Doc's sniper rifle was OP, minigun was super-OP, dynamite was OP and knife was also OP because it was soundless. What was the most OP however was the ability to gang up, so you could have stood around the corner with everyone and one shot everyone. This was good for speedruns though so even that wasn't a total waste. See this mission for example and try do it non-lethal way to see which one is WAY, WAY, WAY easier:



And even with Sanchez, this mission is very hard non-lethal way because of the open area and miniguns:


But the hardest (and by far) mission in Desperados and any tactical game I know is going non-lethal in this mission:


If you manage to save the Doc non-lethal way I will congratulate you but when you do you will realize how retarded was what you've just said.

P.S.
There were many more missions where one had to really think outside the box and have very nimble fingers (some where even harder than the ones I've mentioned, with the exception of the saving Doc mission which is EXTREMELY difficult, but possible) to succeed non-lethal way but try to do it with the missions I've mentioned and then we can talk. I've still got all the saves from my non-lethal playthrough (where you can see that I've killed no one) if you want to try it but you can easily go to further missions using cheat commands (there is a cheat command to advance the mission instantly).

 

[Darth Roxor]

yeah ok you are right, especially on the rambo point

I might have somewhat confused Desperados with the Commandos 1 expansion (where non-lethal was hilariously easy because each knocked out guy essentially gave you a free spy), but I still think lamenting the lack of tying up in Shadow Tictacs is pretty dumb, because apart from freak cases like saving Doc, Desperados would give you a shitton of ways to knock dudes out almost for free. Whether it's Sanchez ambushing groups in siesta mode, Kate kicking them in the nuts, or Doc lobbing gas into massive mobs, and then you just tie 'em up and it's ggwp - especially since IIRC missions without Sam are very rare.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Lemming42]

yeah ok you are right, especially on the rambo point

I might have somewhat confused Desperados with the Commandos 1 expansion (where non-lethal was hilariously easy because each knocked out guy essentially gave you a free spy), but I still think lamenting the lack of tying up in Shadow Tictacs is pretty dumb, because apart from freak cases like saving Doc, Desperados would give you a shitton of ways to knock dudes out almost for free. Whether it's Sanchez ambushing groups in siesta mode, Kate kicking them in the nuts, or Doc lobbing gas into massive mobs, and then you just tie 'em up and it's ggwp - especially since IIRC missions without Sam are very rare.

Yeah, I was legit confused to read your claim that there's no additional challenge playing non-lethal. On top of having to sneak Sam over to people to tie them up (remembering that there are maps where the party spawns in different parts of the map, or maps where Cooper must go ahead alone by scaling cliffs and then reunite with the rest of the group later), it means you can't use Cooper's insta-kill knife or crazy overpowered quick shot ability. Nor can you use Sam's rattlesnake which, placed at the top of ladders, can literally clear entire maps without the player doing anything.

For every way to easily KO people, there's even easier ways to kill them all. Even after you've KOd people, having Cooper come up and stab them is usually more convenient and safe than trying to keep them asleep (with the risk of killing them if you take too long and have to keep hitting them) while you figure out how to get Sam over to them.

And also remember that even tying people up is risky - if another guard sees them, they'll approach them and untie them. So your massive mob that Doc KOd and Sam tied up could, if one person chances across them, all be back in action soon and actively hunting for you.

 

[Zombra]

Someone clearly didn't make the effort to break Sanchez out of prison without killing any guards.

 

[zool]

Someone clearly didn't make the effort to break Sanchez out of prison without killing any guards.

I did. God, I spent so much time on that mission.

 

[Rahdulan]

Someone clearly didn't make the effort to break Sanchez out of prison without killing any guards.

Jesus Christ, that campfire still gives me nightmares.

 

[Punch]

Someone clearly didn't make the effort to break Sanchez out of prison without killing any guards.

you made me reinstall it

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/desperados-3/showdown-mode-explained

Desperados 3 has a much-improved planning mode

While Desperados 3 will continue the series’ tradition of real-time tactical combat, the upcoming sequel will have a powerful planning mode that lets players pause the action and issue commands to each member of their squad.

Hitting the shift key will enter Showdown mode, and while it’s activated, you’ll be free to look around the map and evaluate the tactical situation. Desperados 3 will have room for major gunfights, but there will generally be other, smarter approaches to hostile encounters if you’re thinking tactically.

Throw a coin at a horse, for example, to set it up to kick anyone who walks behind it (horses hate the idea of fiat currency). Or you might spot a loose boulder that can be pushed down onto enemies, which the survivors will chalk up as an accident and thus not call for reinforcements the way they might if they found themselves under gunfire.

Further into the game, you’ll be able to give orders to your whole team of five outlaws in Showdown mode, creating opportunities for elaborate mousetrap maneuvers. Producer Jonathan Riedler explained that the idea is to encourage players to approach the game with stealth in mind, trying to avoid massive shootouts whenever possible.

Here’s the trailer, which debuted at E3 earlier this week.

Another thing to keep in mind in Desperados 3 is that once reinforcements have arrived in a map, they’ll stick around, even if the alert status of your enemies goes back down to its normal level. Generally, you’ll want to avoid this, and the developers say whipping out the six-gun is generally a guaranteed way to attract unwanted attention.

Desperados 3 will have three main chapters, set in three distinct areas: Colorado, New Orleans, and New Mexico. They’re all perfect backdrops for Wild West outlaw action, and now we know we’ll have the chance to pause and take in the scenery while we’re at it. It’s scheduled to launch later this year.

 

[GrainWetski]

OK Who's idea was it to use that horrible nigga rap in the game about wild west also the hand drawn 2d maps of the first game look a lot more detailed, sharp compared to that screenshot above look at that blurry rock and cactus!!!

The game is onsole trash and the console niggas like their rap.