Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive (2001)

Desperados 3 is one of my favorite games of all time. The whole Mimimi style of stealth games is so much fun for me. This game is not a Mimimi game but it introduces most of the central characters and was an early game in the stealth genre, similar to Commandos and Robin Hood.

One of the things I appreciated most about Mimimi games was that it felt like you were solving a logic puzzle in which characters to use, where to go, what enemies to take out and how, etc. This game definitely has some of that but it is less about logic and much more about quick reflexes of the player. The fact that the NPCs in this game react to your actions by switching up their routine in unforeseen ways often puts you in a spot where you have to react quickly rather than carefully consider how to approach them. Still, once I became familiar with the mechanics of the game, I very much enjoyed it. Not a favorite of all time but will likely be near the top of my list of 2026.

There's a few characters that return in D3 but not all. Sam, especially, seems an integral part of the team but doesn't return. He definitely had a very important role to play in this game.

This game is 25 years old and I was worried that I would encounter the bugs that prevented me from completing Commandos 1. There were none and I pretty much enjoyed the whole thing.

I played the hell out of the demo for Desperados when I was a kid, and its difficulty kicked my ass. But I loved stealth games and I loved Commandos, so I was eager to get a full copy of "Wanted Dead or Alive for my PC - which I eventually did. There's six playable characters - all with different abilities that set them apart. You use them all for different sections throughout the cheesy but fun western campaign missions, and for me, just the thought of a Commandos in the Wild West was incredible and I played this a lot, spending hours clearing every level of every enemy. I'm playing the third one right now and enjoying it, even if it's easier than this was back in '02!

-(4/5)-

I used to play this game a lot as a kid, but was never able to get past mission 13. It's a bit sad that I played this after Shadow Tactics as an adult, since I really missed all the quality of life features it added.

The entire aesthetic and art is brilliant, it's hard to believe such an old game can be so good looking - that is, until you see the cutscenes, lol. I really like the OST and how much variety it has: there's 2 "enemy alert" soundtracks, 10 "enemy suspicion" (I especially love Orange08, it sounds so goofy), and 20 "no suspicion" map soundtracks (I love most of them a lot, they're very cool). Each enemy/civilian type has several different voice clips depending on their current action, as is usual from this type of stealth game. What's noteworthy is how brilliant the Spanish dub is. I especially love Sanchez and Sam.

Some pretty bad AI clunkiness that I noticed:

• Specific in Mission 22: The police side will call a guy from the bandit side if they hear a noise and ask them to investigate as if they were on the same side. After the police guy returns to normal he'll notice a bandit is in front of him and kill him, lmao. This happened way too often too.
• If an enemy sees a dead body but then sees Sanchez in his siesta pose, he'll forget about the dead body.
• Cooper won't use any close range moves on enemies when on the stairs. This particuarly was a pain in mission 13.

If I had one complaint about some of the map design is how easy it is to beat almost all of them with just Cooper and Sanchez after Fortezza. It again makes me think of Shadow Tactics where the entire party was not only very useful a lot of the times but also necessary not only solo but also as a combo together. I really wanted to use Kate more but most of her tricks become deprecated in the late game where most of the enemies won't even fall for them. Sam too, besides a couple of maps where you need to use the bombs is only ever useful if you want to go for a snake cheese strategy (and in that one level where you can't kill anyone). Speaking of cheese, the nighttime levels are so, SO easy to cheese, it's a bit sad.

I know I'm making it sound pretty bad, but it's still one of the most fun games in my Steam library, and would be my absolute favorite of its genre if Shadow Tactics hadn't come and done all the same things but better. Despite all my complaints I can't bring myself to give it anything less than 5. It's such a cool, stylish and fun game. :D

I can't wait for Desperados 3 after hearing it got picked up by the same developers as Shadow Tactics. I really trust they're going to make it even more amazing! :D