Wanted: Dead PC Review

Sticking on Wanted: Dead, watching the intro cutscene and playing for a few minutes, I can understand what the developers at Soleil were trying to achieve. They even clearly state this on the Steam page for the game with a bullet point that shouts out “A love letter to the sixth generation of consoles.”, and it does feel as if this game’s design, story and presentation were lifted from a studio developing back in that time period. That generation of consoles was the Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube and Dreamcast era, a time known for awesome or/and quirky action games.

I have a ton of fond memories, as I am sure a lot of the people reading this do as well, playing games like Dead to Rights, Devil May Cry, Second Sight and so forth, but playing them now, they have this particular feeling to them from that time. In fact, I would say Wanted: Dead reminds me of the b-tier, low-budget action games from the Xbox 360/PS3 consoles, where we had an overload of titles like Binary Domain, Dark Sector, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and Inversion. I would be all down for Wanted: Dead if it played comparable to those, but the team at Soleil, which is made up of some ex-Ninja Gaiden and ex-Dead or Alive developers, people who know their action, have taken it too far, and I cannot tell if this was a deliberate execution or something that went a tiny bit wrong during development.

In a world where corporations are the big boys, running the place through their newfound influences, Wanted: Dead sets up a take on the dystopian cyberpunk vision, but it does not actually portray that much of it. Maybe I am wanting more something like Cyberpunk 2077, where the world truly did feel set in a rewrite of what the future could bring through cybernetic enhancements. In Wanted: Dead, apart from the inclusion of androids, I would have taken this as a modern-day setting. Wanted: Dead never truly makes the story clear, a mishap of elements that feels incomplete and rushed joined in with some rather nonsensical moments, fun and amusing instances, such as an Australian narrator popping up when talking about ramen, which leads into a ramen eating rhythm game, something that is a throwback to those random PS2-era game designs, but does not help the disjointed nature of the story.

The narrative is that the main character, Swiss-born, Lt. Hannah Stone, a once-convicted prisoner, is allowed a second chance to join an elite Hong Kong police squad that goes by the name Zombie Unit. She and her three teammates end up getting involved in a mission that ends up being a conspiracy that leads down a path of corrupt police rivals, which features a lookalike Tom Cruise, a Home Bargains Tom Cruise I must add, and twisted corporations that fight for power. It is quite hard to follow, and in fact, I got more about the past of the main character from the cool anime cutscenes than I ever did about the general story. Yeah, you do not play this game to walk away with a story, which comes across as incomplete, you are here for the wacky mini-games and action, right?

On paper, it sounds brilliant. Who does not want another hack-and-slash and gun action game, especially one set in Hong Kong, where we already know how brilliant this setup can be thanks to amazing Hong Kong cinema. Wanted: Dead should be a no-brainer, a solid action game that has everything set up in its favour, but as I mentioned in the beginning, something happened and the execution of this game is not as good as it should have been, it falls flat and ends up being a rather average action game with some issues that make the experience less than ideal.

Stone has access to a Katana for melee, a pistol, and two bigger range weapons, with one of them always being Stone’s trusty rifle, and the other can be any of the enemy guns dropped by them on death. There is the occasional chainsaw to be found, which can instantly kill an enemy, even the elite units, but will instantly run out of fuel if used on those tough cookies. There is one button assigned for melee, and one for pistol, which does not feature any aiming, as it auto locks onto an enemy and hits them for small damage. The pistol is also rather slow but does have unlimited ammo, although since you cannot purposely aim the pistol, there is no confirmed way to get headshots.

The main two guns behave like a standard third-person shooter with over-the-shoulder aiming. Stone can join cover behind a wall, but it is finicky, often slipping off the cover for no reason or staying put when wanting to quickly move from an enemy flank. I often tried to avoid it and purposely use the shoulder aiming and sidestep out of walls myself rather than leaving it to the game’s programming. Even then, the camera will sometimes flip out and be facing a totally unhelpful position where it is impossible to see anything and requires moving to sort it out. It does not help to have such issues in an action game that relies on the player being able to hit their targets correctly.

Weapon wise, expect to find various types of rifles, shotguns, grenades/rocket launchers, but the selection of weapons is thin. There is access to two types of grenades, but these are some of the most unpredictably light and least damaging grenades I have seen for some time in a video game. I would often spam them to make sure they killed the enemy. Healing meds are on the d-pad for quick use to restore some health, and there is the ability to block and parry with the melee with the shoulder button.

A problem with gun combat is that Stone’s rifle is the star of the show. This gun gains upgrades as the campaign moves on, which enables customisation in stats, such as recoil, accuracy, magazine capacity, reload speed, damage, stopping power and armour piercing. There is no one mod that does all, as each one will trade off one of these categories for another. This is the same for the pistol as well, which I found setting up for good stopping power helped with stunning foes and enabling to rush in for a melee combo string. The problem with having these upgrades based on only Stone’s weapon is that enemy weapons always felt flat compared to her rifle. They do not gain upgrades, and so end up feeling weak in comparison They are a backup to her main gun, with only the grenade launcher feeling worthwhile to use. Unless you are hitting headshots, these enemies will eat an ammo clip with their own weapons, so the reliance on Stone’s rifle is even more. Another issue with that is ammo comes in short supply. I always found myself running out of Stone’s rifle and having to resort to these rubbish enemy weapons (also small in ammo supply, so requires switching other weapons on the ground) or getting in closer for melee damage, which the pistol does help with thanks to the short stun duration. The gunplay comes across as the weaker aspect of combat but is required to take down the longer-range enemies.

Melee is more powerful, but do not expect to be playing Wanted: Dead like a character action game, such as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, as Stone is limited in her combo ability. Triple press of the attack performs a trio of swings, but these can be mixed up with the pistol to branch the combo string into a different path, but there are only three paths to divert the combo. Even the skill tree only extends the length of the combo by one or two hits. The main saviour is the parry, and the pistol, which both can counter enemies during their attack animation to stun them and follow up with a hit. Enemies can kill Stone in a few hits, with the elites able to finish her off in three. This makes dodging, guarding, parrying and stunning all more critical in battle, especially the latter, as this can allow Stone to perform an instant kill counterattack animation. A player unable to use these mechanics will die a few times and must deal with the fight repeatedly. This is more the case as the game progresses towards its latter levels, where the difficulty spike increases in that it feels like an uphill struggle against what the game throws at you.

Wanted: Dead, for the short time it offers – I finished the game in just under 8 hours, but that was meddling in a lot of the mini-games, I could clearly see this over in 5 hours – brings variety not often seen in titles. There is an inclusion of mini-games that feel pulled out of Sega’s Yakuza games, although not done in such high quality. There is a ramen-eating rhythm game, a 99 luftballons rhythm game, a 2D scrolling arcade space shooter, crane games to gain models, and target practice time/score attacks. These features are not particularly done well, but make for a fun downtime between each mission. The missions themselves are straightforward in design; get to the end of the level and fight a boss. There is never anything to do differently in each of the stages, be it the corporate offices, nightclub or city park, you fight the bad guys until they are all cleared and you can move to the next section of the level. It is a rudimentary level design with some nifty environmental themes holding up its basic play area.

On the PC, Wanted: Dead looks fine. It’s not a bad-looking game by any stretch of the imagination, but there are performance issues that I noticed, and also the developer has put out a tweet mentioning they are investigating these. This is due to the inconsistent frame rate. At one point, at 4K with all the settings maxed, the game will easily run over 130+ fps with a 4090, but randomly the game will suddenly drop to 80ish+ for what seems no reason. It is not like the action on the screen is suddenly full of particles, but the drop can be felt, which means anyone with weaker cards would expect this to drop under 60fps, which is not ideal for an action game. As for the voice acting, it’s a very b-tier budget, as you would kind of expect. I am assuming this was done on purpose to match the rest of the game’s early 2000 feel.

I mentioned at the start that I could not tell if Wanted: Dead was a deliberate execution or something that went wrong during development. It certainly has that low-budget game feel, but this does not excuse some of the issues the game has. I am all for silly and experimental games but pricing this package £50 feels like a cheeky attempt at miscategorising what this game is. An intentionally janky experience that will make you laugh in amusement at its balls-to-the-wall randomness and moan in frustration at its awkward gameplay features. A fair attempt at bringing back the fun, no-nonsense action games of the PS2/PS3 era, but one that does not quite hit the same heights as those B-tier titles. A specific crowd who enjoys these less fluid action games will find something to like here, but maybe wait for a sale before taking that ride to crazy town.