#WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE SERIES HOW TO#
#WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE SERIES PS2#

You are funneled into fights against guys who pepper you with gunfire, offering you plenty of cover but rarely enough ammo to return the favour.

#WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE SERIES HOW TO#

For the most part, though, the game is unsure how to accommodate your skills. In the briefest, briefest of moments, you'll slice a dude in half and maybe lodge a bullet in some guy's skull in a wombo combo that would make Uma Therman beam. The saddest thing about the game's fights, is in its tiniest flashes of cool. Unfortunately, you spam one of two or maybe three combos, all the while praying you avoid the agony of being warped back to a stingy checkpoint. I'd be okay with this setup if carving through said goons was a joyous, complex thing. Without fail, missions are an exercise in clearing waves of samey goons until you reach a slightly more interesting boss at the end. I'd rather the story was told entirely through this format, if I'm honest.

Neat, right? Sometimes you'll get flashbacks delivered through anime sequences, which are surprisingly good, even if the bar to impress is low. I mention the Wickerman, because Wanted: Dead lets you parry enemy strikes with a quick blast of your pistol, and even mix in cheeky extra shots to stagger enemies and alter your – admittedly, limited – combos.

Again, I think the game wants me to feel like John Wick but ends up feeling more like John's kicked me in the dick.

#WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE SERIES PS2#

Aside from radiating strong PS2 demo disc energy, which I adore, the hacking and slashing is dull and repetitive. You'd think combat would be the game's saving grace, given it's made by the devs behind Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, and sees you fight with a combination of pistol and katana. How can it? There's nothing to comment on. A jarring cut to a ramen eating rhythm game may get a laugh, but it can't be anything more than a hollow chuckle because it's incapable of any social commentary. After you've endured a bit of 'banter' post-mission, you're often thrown into rhythm games a la Yakuza's karaoke or a sidescrolling shooter, many of which are pretty fun! But they quickly disappear from memory because they don't inhabit a universe that’s anything more than a vague cyberpunk city, with a silicone sheen reminiscent of the many shagging sims that dominate Steam's 'New and Trending' feed. I think the game wants to be a quirky blend of action and silliness, like Yakuza (or Like A Dragon) in the way those loveable beefcakes veer from seriousness to hilarity. The narrator hadn't made an appearance up until this point and disappears entirely afterwards. I've chucked a gif below which shows an Australian narrator barging into one of Herzog's many insufferable monologues and delivering a history lesson on ramen. Everyone tells each other to 'Shut the fuck up!' a lot. And each time you're situated at a diner (they spend lots of time in diners), you're forced to watch some 'banter' between the group, as if sitting amongst banter between strangers is a surefire way to understand a group's storied history. Herzog, in particular, is misogynistic and abrasive and – typically – has the most to say. And sandwiched between each mission you're forced to hang out with three dudes, two of which make my brain leak, and one who kicks the leakage about, creating a mushy streak on the floor. It doesn't seem to tell a story, though? Like, all the cutscenes are largely just hot air or confusing time-skips. I think it's about a war between humans and robots, where you're a member of a police force trying to uncover some corporate conspiracy.

I'm going to be frank with you: I have no idea what's happening with the story. If I were Debra Meadon playing it for the first time live on Dragon's Den, and someone sidled up behind me and pressed a katana to my throat, I would still carefully put the controller down and say, 'It's a no from me'. I rooted for it when I first saw it way back when, and got excited when I heard it was being made by devs behind Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, but what's arrived is a jumbled mess that fights you at every turn. Aside from the tiniest glimpses of cool when a combo comes together, the game clearly doesn't know what it wants to be, or if it did once upon a time, its original vision must've gotten lost under a dogpile of ideas. I'm sad to report that it isn't any of these things.

And I'm guessing it wants players to experience the joys of shredding goons, and a story told through unpredictable cuts to karaoke and anime. I think Wanted: Dead wants to be a singleplayer, third-person action game with kickass combat and a colourful cyberpunk universe that slides effortlessly between gritty and silly. Wanted: Dead has the briefest, briefest glimpses of good, but this third-person action game is a frustrating mess in almost every regard.

Wanted dead or alive series