Desperados 2 – Hands On
Desperados 2 – Hands On
A dog limps into a bar and says ‘Ahm lookin’ fer the man that shot ma paw’… A terrible joke, I know, but a good way to ease into a look at Desperados 2, the tactical Wild West shooter from Spellbound and Atari. Sitting down with Jean-Marc Haessig, Creative Director of Spellbound Entertainment, we took a mosey on through the sequel and fanned our six-shooters.
Desperados 2 puts you back in the saddle sore jeans of John Cooper, this time on the trail of the banditos who killed his brother, hence the subtitle ‘Cooper’s Revenge’. The old gang are back together, with John leading the way assisted by Doc, Sam, Kate and the others as well as a new member to the gang, Hawkeye, an Injun, who joins up with Cooper in his quest to avenge his brother as Hawkeye has an interest in the killers too.
There is a strong storyline driving the game, which is played out nicely with the action, which again focuses on a combination of planning, stealth and tactics to see you through the levels.
The first game came under fire for the erratic AI, both of your team and of the enemy, which I can say has had a thorough re-working. The enemy AI react far more realistically to threats and have a more realistic ‘line of sight’ vision, which allows you to sneak by undetected if you’re careful. In fact, in some areas of the game, this is key to success and without tweak AI, some areas just wouldn’t be possible.
A new feature is the ability to drop into third person mode at any point in the game and take over a character directly. This is handy for taking a break from the 3D aerial view and good for kicks if you fancy a bit of knife throwing or gunslinging… or if you just want to be more involved in your team’s actions. Also, you can quickly re-gain a tactical advantage by hopping back out and checking what’s going on around you… very handy in the middle of a gunfight.
Another new and very handy feature is the quick action sets, which allows you to program each character with up to five actions at once. These can range from just moving to a specific point through waypoints, through to performing an action such as knifing a bad guy or blowing up explosives.
Jean-Marc showed me one such section where we were attacking a heavily defended fort. Using Hawkeye he sneaked up behind a couple of bad guys. Jean-Marc then paused the game and started programming the team. Using a stopwatch, you can synchronise the team’s actions so they set off on what they’ve got to do just when you want them to and not as soon as you unpause.
So Doc was set to approach a hillock and then using his sniper ability, he had to take out the two watchtower guards. While that was happening, Hawkeye would take out the two guys on the next hillock with his bow, then leg it back to the main group. Kate would lay down some nitro-glycerine bottles and Cooper would take up a position near the door of the fort.
When Jean-Marc unpaused I watched as all the guys went about their tasks, each setting off in stages. Doc and Hawkeye set off, Hawkeye killing the two guys on the hill just as Doc took up his vantage point. Meanwhile, Kate was laying down bottles and then retreating while Cooper headed up against the wall to cover the door. As soon as Doc started shooting, the way was clear for Cooper and the bad guys saw Hawkeye leg it back to Kate and gave chase. Cooper waited for a while and then started shooting them in the back while Kate started shooting from her vantage point. Dropping into third person perspective as Doc, Jean-Marc then lined up on the nitro-glycerine bottles, shot one and set off a chain reaction that took out all but one of the remaining bad guys, who Kate and Hawkeye finished off… complicated but class stuff.
If you haven’t played Desperados, think of it as a Commandos in the Wild West and you’ll be pretty much there and if that tickles your fancy, you’ll have to wait until Easter 2006 for the release.
