Reviews from

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REVIEW ORIGINALLY WRITTEN AND POSTED ON MARCH 3RD 2023

Oh, boy. I’ve been putting this one off, but here we go.

So Wanted: Dead found its way onto my radar when a friend showed me the trailer to this game at work. Off of this trailer, I got hooked on wanting to get this game for months, so much that I decided to pick up a collectors edition of the game, as my optimism for the game went hand-in-hand with all the nice little pieces that came with this edition of the game, but to my bewilderment, opening up these items was one of the best parts that came with purchasing this game.

Off of the promotion from this game, the game gave me the impression that this was going to be a very fast-paced hack-and-slash set in a very colourful cyberpunk-like universe, with an impressionable cast of characters that I was hoping to love when one of the first things that I saw in this game was the classic roast GIF recreated with the main characters in this game. Oh, how wrong was I?

To dive a little deeper into the general gameplay of this game, the gameplay from the trailers was compared a lot to games like Ninja Gaiden, but also introduced some third person shooting sprinkled on top. The gunplay is simple, with an assault rifle and a sidearm constantly on deck, as well as a secondary which you can pick up a variety of guns from the enemy forces as you take them out. The gunplay was featured, but not highlighted as the main aspect of the gameplay in the trailers, which is why I was very confused playing through the game and finding out just how much it feels like they actually prioritized this, and how it feels mandatory to abuse the gunplay against the shoddy AI through the game bearably.

I remember rushing into the very first section in the game and getting gunned down right away with all of the enemies being scattered across this giant lobby room. Immediately, I’m having to throw the hack-and-slash out the window, and play the game the way that they clearly intended… A cover shooter. At a moment's notice, I was actually playing The Division, and if you know me, you know that I really don’t get along with the recent line of Tom Clancy games. This goes on for most of the first stage of the game, and there’s only five stages in this entire game, so 20% of the way through, and I still haven’t gotten to really play the game the way that they very prominently promoted and pulled me in with, no matter how much they wanted to launch tutorials at me on the melee combat, as well. I would say that it fortunately turned around in the second stage of the game, and I finally got to play around with the melee a lot more, but that’s where we really started to spiral downwards with this game.

Whatever you learned in the tutorial, you may as well throw it out of the window, because none of it is actually going to help you get far. The combos are so simple, yet feel so rough to perform, probably thanks to the game not consistently reading inputs (oh boy I have a bone to pick with this) and even if you decide you want to even try and use these combos, just be ready for even the weakest of grunts armouring through the combo and rinsing your health from one tap. There was times where just tapping square was a bit of mindless fun, but that was well after I decided that this game wasn’t what I wanted out of it, and wanted to be done with it, AND THAT’S WHEN THE ARBITRARY DIFFICULTY SPIKES COME INTO PLAY!

Most of the enemies in this game are unnecessarily damage sponges, and on top of that, the resources that you get in this game are incredibly scarce, and are also randomly generated whenever they actually appear. If an enemy even drops some ammo when you kill them, you’ll usually get 10 bullets for whatever gun they was holding onto, and while you’re already getting a small amount, you can’t hold onto a lot of ammo either. No more than two full magazines in the reserve, actually. While it seems like a nitpick, what doesn’t help is the stat tradeoffs with the gun customisation. Every kind of attachment has stat increases and decreases, and one of the main tradeoffs that comes with increasing your magazine size and ammo count, is your damage with that gun for some reason. By the way, unless you happen to have the Flying Pig as your secondary weapon, a fair few of these enemies will take every single bullet you can hold in your primary, AND secondary weapons, all while still being ready for a good sword fight. Oh, but at least the handgun has infinite ammo with lock-on. That’s gotta be good if you decide to cheese out the katana wielding enemies, right? Hahaha, fuck… Just so I don’t keep complaining excessively, I’ll just add on a quick note that on top of the problems with the enemies and their iron resolve and the lack of resources, the checkpoint system is a huge blow to the games progression as well. The amount of times that I’ve been sent so far back in this game because of these checkpoints being a marathon apart at times just hurts so bad.

The gameplay isn’t the only place where this game falls on its face. Honestly, there’s hardly anywhere that the game has a gracious landing on. The game has a very nice soundtrack, however it feels like a lot of the music was used in the wrong places in the game. I couldn’t even slightly tell you what the story of this game was, looking back on it. Some zombie defence force that barely even fought any zombies, or something? The characters were also immensely flat as well, and the voice acting felt like it was pulled from the first table read of the script, getting to know what they were working with, rather than actually getting into the studio to act it out. I think I only liked one character in the entire game, and she wasn’t even a part of the main team, either. She was just the gunsmith who also showed up once or twice in the final stage of the game.

This one hurts the most, however. There’s a selection of mini-games in this game, including an old-school arcade game (which no one seems to be able to finish by the way) and one of my favourite mini-games thanks to Yakuza, karaoke. Now, the Yakuza games created a perfect formula for karaoke if you ask me. Nothing complicated, hit the buttons to match the rhythm, it’s worked for so many games, and others have imitated this format with no trouble. SO HOW DID THIS GAME MANAGE TO IMITATE SAID STYLE, AND DO IT WRONG!? I said I had a bone to pick with the ghosting button inputs, and this is exactly why, but on top of that, trying to overcomplicate the game with a LOT more buttons, having to hit multiple buttons at the same time, AND the combination of buttons they want you to hit with zero reaction time. If you can’t get the karaoke right, then I’m sorry, but it’s all over.

To thankfully conclude my review on Wanted: Dead, it’s not often at all that I think to sell a game on when I finish it. Wanted: Dead was one of those games. I was very excited to play this game, and once the main game was all said and done, I had absolutely no motivation to ever consider going back to it to finish the 100%, which is good, because it still appears that almost three weeks after the game has released, it’s still bugged, and nobody can get the 100%. By time I finished playing the game, I was sitting on a 3, maybe 3.5/10, but after writing this, and really putting the whole game into perspective, I think I was just holding on to hoping that this game was going to be something great. It’s an amazing idea on paper, but there’s no execution. 2/10, sadly.

looks at the avg. rating, steam reviews, general reception of this game

this is why we can't have nice things anymore, genuine good games like this one will be treated at best like they're "so bad it's good!" and never get the recognition they deserve for their incredible game design.

Replayed on the latest (1.13) update with combat overhaul on Japanese Hard difficulty. While i'm at it, I'm not a huge fan of this update (it makes the game easier in some ways and favors a more rushdown approach especially on some encounters and boss fights). Still it's a good pretext to revisit the game, and definitely still a very enjoyable experience.

The best worst game of 2023.

The story is nonsense that doesn't know if it's trying to be serious or not.
The combat is functional yet clumsy, which isn't helped by the poor balancing and dumb AI
The presentation is all over the place and badly performed
and the mini-games are totally lifted from Like a Dragon/Yakuza series and done terribly.

It's pretty much a 2004 game that came out in 2023. (Like a HD Devil's Third, considering the devs behind this game did work on before leaving Valhalla.)

Cannot recommend this anymore than $20, especially considering it's length as I was about to beat it within about 6 hours but it's a good bad recommendation from me, even at the low score I've given it.

é meio complicado falar sobre esse jogo, de certo modo, ele é o jogo mais nota 6 existente, não é taaaao bom em maior parte do que se propõe a fazer, mas da pra relevar alguns dos problemas, por que ainda assim, me diverti bastante com ele.

começando pelo lado ruim, o jogo não tem muito polimento, a gameplay é sim bem divertida porem existem alguns erros impossiveis de ignorar. A câmera é meio truncada e de vez em quando pode te atrapalhar a mirar ou dar parry, um sistema de lock-on faz falta apesar de não ser exatamente necessário, o jogo parece que esquece que seu personagem não consegue pular e o design das fases acaba te atrapalhando bastante por isso e em vários momentos parece que só esqueceram de balancear certas coisas do combate, além de faltar um pouquinho mais de variedade, entretanto, o jogo é curto então isso não incomoda muito. A questão é, o jogo é MUITO curto, a história não faz sentido nenhum pq parece q ela é só 1/3 de uma narrativa completa, não acontece quase nada, e o que acontece não tem muito desenvolvimento nem impacto.

Agora, onde o o jogo sucede de fato é na sua apresentação, o estilo visual, a estética retro futurista, os finalizadores durante o combate, o jogo tem estilo e charme de sobra. Além dos design dos personagens e de todo o visual do jogo, entre as missões de ação dignas de uma série policial ou filme de ação dos anos 80(com direito a uma missão dentro de uma balada e uma cutscene tocando maniac), temos minigames, jogo de ritmo de comer ramen, karaokê cantando uma musica alemã que eu amo, retro shooter em um arcade. Esses detalhes ajudam muito no carisma da obra toda. Além disso, apesar de ter dito que a história não faz muito sentido, ainda assim toda a apresentação dela é ótima, ênfase nas cutscenes em anime mostrando o passado da personagem principal.

no geral, é um jogo com um potencial enorme, porém segurado por um orçamento médio e ideias de mais, ainda assim com todo o estilo e charme que ele tem, se tivesse uma história maior com certeza conseguiria ver wanted: dead sendo cultuado assim como jogos do suda51. É uma pena realmente, gostaria de ver uma versão mais realizada desse jogo.

This is clearly one of those 7/10 games in many different ways... I don't even know where to start. I'd rather focus on the positive aspects which seem to be more overlooked in reviews.

- The voice acting is done by VA of different nationalities, which gives a certain flavour to it. I don't know if it's just the different accents/cadence of people not speaking their native language or just that they are doing their best but it has those ending-1990s/begining-2000s kind of cheesy voice acting which contributes to its "7/10 out of the past times" identity.

- At the beginning the combat may seem to be a little bit janky, and some parts of it indeed are with the genre-characteristic wonky camera, attacks coming out of it sometimes and stuff, but it's really satisfying in general. The finishers felt fine to pull off and the bosses are a mixed bag, although not many, half of them are cool. Fun and direct combat that is fun to play, what else did you want from this?

- The OST is quite good to be honest. I was disappointed in the club stage where they played a remix of "Maniac" by Michael Sembello to not be used on the actual level... damn, I really wanted to kill mobs while listening to it.

- The story has some interesting points here and there and others are just all over the place. You know, 7/10 vibes. The dialogue has some funny bits and there're plenty of references to pop culture that some younger audiences may not get but they are kinda corny so I'm all in for it anyways. The ending and the story end way too soon, like something was missing there, but fuck it, if we get another game down the line then fine, if not, you can accept it as is and roll with it.

- It has in-between levels minigames! They're not all great but again, add up to give the traits of a 7/10 game. The bullet hell side-scroller mecha minigame rules though.

- Also, it's got an explorable hub, which is always a plus in an action game for me.

- Chainsaw.

Just play for the vibes and the action and you won't get dissapointed.


So ziemlich das schlechteste Action-Spiel, welches ich je gespielt habe.

Der Nahkampf ist extrem clunky und janky (auch wenn man Animationen canceln kann, wodurch es etwas flüssiger läuft). Fernkampf ist auch nicht gut, da man permanent Munitionsmangel hat. Zum Teil sind grundlegende Fähigkeiten wie Granaten benutzen in einem Skilltree.

Dazu noch gegnerische Nahkämpfer, die zu viel aushalten und nervige Fernkämpfer mit Granaten-Spam. Beim zweiten Boss war ich so genervt, dass ich das Spiel nie wieder anfassen will.

technically speaking, the PS4 version is absymal. can't believe how badly the cutscenes are rendered and how washed out the graphics are. luckily it's playable, but the devs need to fix all of this. judging from gameplay videos, the PS5 doesn't seem to have these issues at all, so I really don't know what went wrong porting it.

btw, the game itself slaps. kinda. it's quirky as hell. sadly, the story is so lackluster and it's a shame since it had potential and the setting is great

>Plays game
Man what the fuck is this looks like some forgotten PS3 game lmao
>dies 5 times
What the fuck I thought this was made by the Ninja Gaiden guys this shit sucks why can't I izuna drop
>discovers guard canceling
OOOHH ok ok I get it now hmmmmm
>Discovers Iron sight canceling
OH MY GOD GOTY GOTY GOTY

While the gameplay itself was enjoyable, the voice acting can be seen as a major downside for the game’s quality in general. The story makes no sense at all.

Poco ironicamente è la nouvelle vague videoludica, un rovesciamento completo di tantissimi stili videoludici mischiati da loro. Una scrittura alla kojima che incontra souls che incontra i musou e 2000 altre reference, pure memetiche, è a tutti gli effetti una rottura completa con qualsiasi standard. La considero una delle robe più punk di sti anni, ma allora dov'è il problema? Ik mezzo a scene anime completamente randomiche su cui costruire qualcosa è impossibile, si può notare che seppure il tentativo cosciente di rovesciamento c'è manca un obiettivo. Non si va a dire qualcosa di estremamente politico pur essendo un gioco pro honk kong e anticapitalista, non si va a creare una complessità reale nel set di combo ma ti fa comunque godere fon sta spilungona di 2 metri completamente bagnata di sangue dalla testa ai piedi. Poi ci sono minigiochi random, costruiti per perculare qualcosa che era già una perculata a suo modo (tipo yakuza). Infine boh veramente i dialoghi passano da schizofrenia totale a battute da seconda media a riflessioni sull'impossibilità di vivere in un contesto politico su cui non hai agency. Curioso di vedere che altro faranno le persone coinvolte 👍

P.S: ma poi lmao se ne sono occupati quelli che hanno fatto il gioco di samurai jack e naruto to boruto shinobi striker, qualcuno dia una qualche direzione a sta gente non è possibile sto approccio completamente schizo e competente allo stesso tempo.

P.P.S: un gioco che comunque non è difficile nonostante quello che si dica, lo è solo l'inizio in cui non hai combo e perché pensi che sia uno shooter. L'ho giocato pensando spesso a metal gear rising, quindi subito sapevo di dover colpire con spada e fare la combo