QCF: Wanted:Dead (Playstation 5)

 

 have fond memories of not only playing but also selling what was referred to as a “B” game from my time as a game store employee during the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 era. This type of game, normally an action game would be from a smaller developer and publisher, with a limited budget but always offered entertainment and combat for a lower cost. It was an easy sell for someone looking to play something but didn’t want the larger scope and price of a triple A title. Just some fun games like Stranglehold, Shadows of the Damned and Wet, just to reference a few from the past. For better or worse, Wanted:Dead from Soleil and 110 Industries harkens back to this time in gaming, offering sword-clashing and gun-blazing combat with some corny voice acting and glaring issues in level design and difficulty that might need more than nostalgia to win over most players.

Sword fighting creates the most memorable and satisfying moments of the game

So jumping into Wanted:Dead felt like a daunting task right from the beginning, since the developers of the game previously had worked on the Ninja Gaiden franchise. Certainly, a difficult series of games that I never proceeded far in and frustratingly gave up on pretty fast, so I knew I had my work cut out for me. Players control Hannah Stone, a member of the Hong Kong Police Unit that leads their Zombie Squad of released criminals tasked with eliminating threats by any means necessary. Combat utilizes Stone’s katana and rifle to string combos and inflict damage on synthetic soldiers and corrupt military groups working for corporations that do not yield to the police. Hannah also can use a pistol to interrupt attacks and counter into gory executions when prompted. At certain points of the game, she will have one or three other members of Zombie Unit with her that can revive the player when downed one time, or assist in combat with the proper skill tree upgrades. Other than that, their impact on gameplay is very limited and lead to the player to carry most of the weight while taking on waves of enemies as well as some truly difficult and brutal mini bosses. Throughout the game you can also unlock minigames like a crane machine to obtain collectables, a parody of a classic shmup and a karaoke rhythm game. All the minigames are honestly not good and do little to entice the player to gather unlockables.

The shooting can sometimes feel less effective and halts player momentumThe combat of Wanted:Dead seems to offer many different avenues and combinations, but at times it felt like the shooting was there as a crutch and not encouraged to take on certain enemies and scenarios. The player can only build up their unique meter by landing and parrying melee attacks and once the meter is maxed allows the player to slow down time briefly to inflict additional damage on multiple opponents. This was a very important tool to use when taking on harder adversaries such as cybernetic ninjas and mech-suited soldiers with gatling guns and explosives. Skill tree upgrades can allow for increased ammo and combo finishers, however I often found that I would have to cheese some fights in order to progress, by running and utilizing cover to eventually down my opponent. Ammo seems scarce and checkpoints begin to become spaced out to the point that players will progress far in a battle, just to be downed by a random gunshot or caught in an explosion and have to restart all the way back at the checkpoint. I became frustrated very often at this game and felt like some battles depended on flawless execution of sword fighting and parries to proceed. The game is not for the casual player I soon learned and can only imagine the pedigree of players that enjoyed Ninja Gaiden in the past would have a lot of work ahead of them in this release.

Absolutely hated these guys, they are the worst!Another point of my frustration besides the difficulty would be in the environments, where narrow hallways and uninspired combat areas would amount for several deaths. I would turn a corner and an enemy that would spawn and wait for my arrival would immediately launch into a barrage of attacks, killing me instantly. Or being in cover just for a sniper to shoot an exploding propane tank that sat across from me destroying my current run at the level. Your squad mates can also inadvertently cause your demise and do not offer much other than gunfire that does nothing at all to weakened enemies. That cheese that I described earlier was due in part to refusing to die with an opponent that I was not equipped to take on, but it was also using the broken cover system and vaulting over barricades to slow down mid-level bosses and try to flank them before they could attack. Even the actual boss battles in the game felt simple compared to some of the long-winded shootouts the player must endure before hitting a checkpoint. It just felt like the shooting and gunplay in the game was only there to make it seem flashier but really did not do much for any damage or strategy in the game. The only time combat felt good, and fluid was when clashing with blades and deflecting attacks.

Oh man, hated the ninjas too! I died so many times fighting them!Performance in the game can be at times slow, with some really bad slowdown in some of the later fights that caused the game to almost stop entirely. Clipping into the environment, enemies getting stuck in an animation and poor camera angles made for some unpleasant experiences. There was also a strange reflective tearing that would happen a lot on the edges of the screen that flash bright lights during combat that became a distraction. Graphically the game runs well, running in Unreal Engine on the Playstation 5. However, the level designs seem rough and unoriginal, and all the other characters beside Stone appeared janky and poorly rendered. Unlockable weapon skins can add some customization but there are no options to change appearance of the main character or their teammates. The story of the game is very throw away and as cheesy as you would expect a cyberpunk inspired action movie of the 90’s to be but it seemed to have it’s charm and over time did win me over. The same goes for the voice acting, which is not good at all but I would like to think that it was an intentional decision made to go inline with the campy cop movie motif so I think I’m okay with it. Completing the game unlocks some new difficulties and a new game plus option, but as far as I could tell gave players little incentive to play again since you can basically complete your entire skill tree in the first playthrough and the points you collect while playing are not used for anything else.

As brutal as this game was, I still had fun.

This game will not be for everyone, that is guaranteed. It’s difficulty, lack of polish and inadequacy of what a game is perceived to be in 2023 will turn away plenty of consumers. For some reason though, even with all it’s issues and problems I still ultimately enjoyed this game. Sure, it had me upset and ready to quit continuously at how unfair to me it seemed at times. But remembering the jankiness of those budget friendly titles of previous generations and how Wanted:Dead seemed to lean more and more into making a game like that pushed me to continue and get through a game that a decade ago I would have given up on. It’s a representation of where gaming came from for many of us and shows that goofy one liners and violent, bloody battles still can have a place in gaming today.