Wanted: Dead

Retro-inspired games have become a big hit in recent years, due to the ever-growing hunger for nostalgia and to escape the crutches of modern gaming. Now in the spotlight are the games of the 2000s, namely the PS2 and OG Xbox era, with the likes of RE4, Halo and GTA roamed as kings of gaming. Even the recent Dead Space remake has many exclaiming that a 15-year-old game is more masterful and fun than a lot of recent releases. But let’s claim down a little and remember, we had a fair share of mediocre and awful games from the past including Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, Batman: Dark Tomorrow, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, Drake of the 99 Dragons, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing … all of which came out in 2003 ….

My point is, not everything inspired by the old days of gaming was great. The original Ninja Gaiden was excellent, and it appears a few people from the series have teamed up for their own retro-inspired gaming take with Wanted: Dead.

So where does Wanted: Dead stand? Read on and find out.


What is Wanted: Dead?




Wanted: Dead is an intense and hyper-violent 3rd person action game, which blends wild gunplay and even wilder swordplay, feeling like a combination of Gears of War and Ninja Gaiden. Players will venture through a futuristic version of Hong Kong (even though it’s set in 2022…) and play as hardened police officer Lt. Hannah Stone, as she and her team known as the Zombie Unit, uncover a devastating corporate conspiracy which could see the collapse of modern society. Hannah and her team of lovable rogues must fight their way through mercenaries, gangs and private military contractors to unravel the mystery behind a shadowy organisation set to disrupt the balance of Hong Kong. It’s set as a spectacular cyberpunk adventure, filled with sexy people, gruesome dismemberment, high-octane action, and most importantly, lots of pussy cats.

As said previously, my summary of Wanted: Dead is a hybrid of Gears of Ninja Gaiden, as combat blends together tactical shooting, and close combat swordplay, but with a devastating learning curve that will surely break even the hardest of gamers. The developers have stated this as “A love letter to the sixth generation of consoles”. This a fair statement, and one which is true. I recently played another game which was also cut from the same cloth, Gungrave GORE, a game which I felt was dated in all the wrong ways, and sadly Wanted: Dead manages to find itself in the same situation. 


Straight from the 6th generation of gaming, with the good … and bad


Wanted: Dead is an odd game, to say the least, and could work immensely well if certain areas were refined a little better. The gameplay loop will see players venturing to multiple locations across Hong Kong, where they will battle it out with gang members, mercenaries and hired goons for one or another. It could be taking on rebellious android workers in a massive park in central Hong Kong or hired goons at a night club or battling a privatise military unit in a heated firefight at a police station. And in between these brutal exchanges of blood, steel and bullets, comes some downtime, where Hannah can explore the precinct, she works and partakes in fun activities such as karaoke, eating Ramen, playing with claw machines and hanging out at the shooting range.

It's a mash of gaming concepts which give the appearance of a varied and wacky action title, that you would most definitely see in the 6th and even 7th generation of gaming. Including random moments which were added for padding but do have merit and fun value.


Striking the balance




With respect, I don’t feel combat is on the same level as Ninja Gaiden, which offered complex combos, and masterful encounter designs, but Wanted: Dead is simple, effective, and usually visually mesmerising. The focus is on the swordplay, but the mix of gunning enemies down from cover does keep you on your toes, where you need to switch between tactics such as slicing and dicing your way through a group of soldiers, to falling back and taking out others armed with rifles.

The developers have managed to strike a good balance in general combat, as you switch between slicing and gunning enemies down. I personally for the most part never felt there was a moment where the action felt messy, or unfair (for the most part). As arenas give you enough space to run around, there is plenty of covers and I think the partner system helps out a lot. As your AI counterparts will usually distract those enemies with firearms if you decide or need to fight hand-to-hand. But there’s also your trusty sidearm, which gets its own dedicated button and allows you to break heavy attacks and stun other enemies for a second or two, thus giving you a breather to pull out your sword.

What is quite an interesting dynamic is the lack of ammo you do get, meaning you’re usually thrust into the heart of the battlefield to retrieve more to cut the remaining foes down. Thankfully you have other tools and skills for the jobs as you progress through the skill tree, including grenades, bullet-time and your AI teammates can learn new tactics to help you out. There is of course parrying system which is usually high risk and reward, and an excellent Special takedown which you can trigger when an enemy is highlighted (normally after having an arm cut off… poor guy). But if you’re lucky enough, you can chain these takedowns to reach multiple enemies in a small area. It’s massively useful and looks spectacular.  

Where Wanted: Dead’s flaws with combat become apparent through a pesky camera in certain arenas, usually in very tight and narrow environments. This can be especially annoying if you’ve dropped into a new, particularly small arena and you have enemies attacking from the front and behind. It’s disorientating and just infuriating when these moments happen, especially if you’re in a compact arena with spongey, heavy enemies that take forever to go down.

Then there is the checkpoint system, and the insane difficulty spikes Wanted: Dead will be known for long after this review. Checkpoints are typically very far apart, and what you get are long gauntlets where you take on numerous NPCs for 10 minutes and then must face a bullet sponge of an enemy that can down you within a hit or two. You will most certainly feel the distance between checkpoints, and it does become really tiresome, especially towards the end of the game, where these gauntlets go on for 10 or 15 a time.

Lastly, the cover system feels so outdated, like something from 2005’s Killswitch or 2007’s Kanye and Lynch, where you snap to cover, rather than hitting a button to do it manually. It’s just awful as you’ll be attempting to get into cover and Hannah won’t, or will if you’re just running towards something. This can also mean certain death.  

While there are certainly some questionable design choices and plenty of elements of artificial difficulty at play, the combat is still quite enjoyable when everything clicks. It does strike a balance between gunplay and melee combat quite well and has some cool boss battles and awesome combos and counters to make you feel like a total badass. But the checkpoint system, bad cover system, and super annoying heavy enemies just make Wanted: Dead feel somewhat artificial in its difficulty.  


The weird, wonderful, and confusing world of Wanted: Dead




Okay, so if you’ve seen the trailers, you’ll be thinking “Oh hey, this looks slightly weird and wacky!”, and oh yeah it is, but so much more… For good and bad.

So Wanted: Dead’s story is not itself bizarre, as it’s a classic cyberpunk tale of corporate corruption, Android conspiracies, and thematic elements of trauma and greed. But the pacing and delivery of story beats feel so massively disconnected, that you swear there are scenes missing between main levels.

There is a lot of plot here, and plenty of cutscenes which range from deep, thought-provoking exchanges where it feels like something from Ghost in the Shell, and then you have moments where everyone is eating ramen, singing at a karaoke bar or just killing time hanging at a gun range with cats roaming around (no cats are harmed). There are characters introduced in one scene and get axed off the next without rhythm or reason. Major developments occur off-screen, and instead, we just see Hannah instead go to an arcade to chill out, while massively important stuff happens elsewhere.

 It's so weird, that I was actually engaged to see what Wanted: Dead would do next, whether it was related to its baffling delivery of the plot, or showing off a neat cutscene that’s live-action or fully animated in an anime style.

By the end, I had so many questions, and I don’t think playing it through again will answer many of them. But while the oddities did bother me largely throughout my time with Wanted: Dead, I will admit there is plenty of charm here too. I really liked Hannah and the zombie squad, the eccentric version of Hong Kong and its many colourful supporting characters that came and went within a heartbeat. Above all, I feel everyone is having fun with the script at least. Plus, outside the odd pacing of the main plot, the backstory to Hannah delivered in full-blown anime scenes was quite engaging and kept me invested throughout.

Overall it’s a mess of a story, or more so its execution is all over the place and just makes no sense at times, but there are still some cool moments and concepts being played around with. I liked much of the cast and the odd quirks here and there were neat. But just be ready to be overly confused when the plot shifts so radically.  

Aside from the wacky plot, and intense combat, you can partake in the handful of minigames, such as ramen eating and the claw machine to obtain figures of characters from the game …. Meta? These mini-games vary, some are enjoyable, and others are a little frantic and overwhelming. The claw machine does feel like one in real life, where it’s massive pain to obtain something from it. But you can kick it and try that way, which is neat.


Wanted: Beautiful …. Kinda




It seems like even Wanted: Dead’s presentation takes on the hybrid concept too, as some of it is really great and a lot of it really isn’t. I give credit to the character models looking pretty good, the awesome soundtrack and the fact that the cats here look like cats (and the best in-game cats I’ve ever seen, unlike the awful Saint’s Row reboot). I was really jamming to the music, loving certain environments, and admired many cutscenes, including the anime ones.

Then there are some things to point out, such as certain environments feeling needlessly spacious, lacking in detail or texture, and that weird smooth/shininess you only get with the Unreal engine when not used properly. I also got to say the voice works fine, sounds as though it was recorded on someone’s phone or something. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but most scenes are usually very quiet and the voice never echoes or feel completely natural. Even in something like the original PS1 Resident Evil, the character’s voices would echo in the hall or big spaces. It’s just a single tone or volume in every environment and it sounds off.

Oh yeah, you can’t pet the cats …. Bummer.


Overall?


Now I love a lot of old games from the 6th generation of consoles, some of my favourites of all time are from this era. But when I hear a developer stating “this is a love letter to that era of gaming”, I will be wary of the final product. Some games and mechanics are timeless, but not all. Wanted: Dead certainly has a lot of heart and is a good attempt at recreating something that truly feels like something from a bygone era. But modern-day retro remakes and homages, like the resurrection of Boomer Shooters, take the good and normally rework or cut out the bad. Wanted: Dead just keeps the bad in and adds more to it sadly.

I personally enjoyed Wanted: Dead more than Gungrave GORE, due to the campy weirdness, and decent action gameplay. But there are quite a few annoyances and odd design choices which hold it back from being a truly gratifying blast from the past.


+ Decent combat and action
+ Lots of randomness and side activities
+ Some cool story elements
+ Charming cast of characters with some neat story elements
+ Some awesome bosses

-- Plenty of artificial difficulties in place - spacious checkpoints, spongey enemies 
- Story feels oddly constructed
- Presentation feels lacking in some areas
- Can’t pet the cats



We would like to thank the publisher for providing an Xbox Series X/S review code for Wanted: Dead for the purpose of this review.