Wanted: Dead

Like a lightsaber, Wanted: Dead is a relic of a bygone era. This game is a genuine love letter to the fans of Japanese action games.

Wanted: Dead is a game of choices. Creative choices, political choices and game design choices.

Let's start with game design. Wanted: Dead is hard as nails. The combat is where the game shines the most. I managed to beat the game in 14 hours and I experienced no dull moment. The mini games are absolutely amazing and worth spending time with. The claw machine is especially addictive.

Political choices. Anyone with their eyes open, and I don't mean mainstream journalism, can see the social commentary on numerous issues. One of the key characters Vivienne provides world exposition in a cooking show. Comedic, obviously, but also prophetic. She's teaching the audience how to cook synthetic pork and describes the world where she lives in - no fresh fruit, half-sapient vegan friendly cloned beef, human flesh flavored dog cans. China rules the world in Wanted: Dead and military convicts are the police. Good or bad but Hong Kong went completely nazi, ruled by a corporation. America, obviously, lost the war, hence the reversed American flag on Herzog's body armor. Hannah wants to quit her job and raise a boy she orphaned but is denied of doing so. There's a lot hidden under the blanket of extreme violence, corn and wacky presentation. Am I the only one seeing all this?

Creative choices. Hiring a non-English speaker to voice the protagonist is a creative choice. It's not a fake accent. Putting a "censored" sticker over a gruesome chainsaw kill is a creative choice. A shower scene that deconstructs the entire idea of Japanese fan service is a creative choice and a bold one. The female lead literally washes away the gore from her body and you get to see the scars and bruises she got during the operation. Everything in this game is made for you to think about what every other action game out there does wrong. Wanted: Dead is the Robocop of character action games. Think about it.

Last bullet point should be called pink. Wanted: Dead is like no other game out there. The minimalistic artwork with bright pink background screams style and a a degree in graphic design. It immediately draws your attention. I purchased the collector's edition that comes with Design Works. The attention to detail is absolutely incredible. Wanted: Dead is my most memorable gaming experience since the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Wanted: Dead is proof that video game journalists don't have a clue what they are talking about. It's a masterpiece of a game with amazing combat, an incredible story and some of the best mini-games ever made. It should be the 2023 game of the year but the big players will never let that happen because they're scared of a little competition. We all know the truth though. The people have spoken. Just look at those user scores!

I think the keyword for this game should be "brave" because some of the creative decisions made during the development period were truly inspired. The creative director is like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Hideo Kojima all rolled into one. In fact, I bet him and Kojima would be really good friends if Kojima would just give him a chance. Colab, anyone?

Did I mention the mini-games yet? Very few developers would be brave enough to have a crane game or a ramen eating mini-game. It's video game design at its very finest and the sign of a true auteur. I can see why investors decided to put their faith in this team and I can't wait for the next 110 Industries game.

I don't want it to come across that Wanted: Dead doesn't have anything to offer that's good in the classical sense. I do have complaints about the combat (I'll cover it more later) but when I got used to the punishing nature of it, I started to enjoy it. The finisher animations are cool and surprisingly brutal. I also think the character design is impressive, the game is no slouch from a graphics perspective and Stone's weird but slick design is what drew me to the game in the first place (she's got a cybernetic arm, a sleeve tattoo and she has to be at least 7' tall, it's distinctive for sure). The game has an affinity for strange environments, despite it taking place in modern day (alternate universe however), there's a retro diner that the characters eat at during the downtime that looks fun and gives the game some personality. The game randomly forays into anime cut scenes that feel transplanted from something else completely but they're well animated and well put together. It's going to be challenging if you're walking into Wanted: Dead expecting a great game that performs smoothly, that feels polished and will envelop you with its story but I would grade parts of this game as good or so bold that I couldn't help but give them extra points.

If you made me distill my thoughts about Wanted: Dead into a single word, I'd say unique. I've been playing video games for years and I actually had brand-new experiences with this game. I'm going to start with the plot and for the very first time that I've ever played a game, I can't detail its story properly now that I've finished. There is a story present about our protagonist Hannah Stone being indoctrinated and then repurposed into the lieutenant of the "Zombie Unit", a subsection of the Hong Kong police that are made up of former criminals to deal with threats usually relating to synthetic humans that are now part of the populace. There are flashbacks/cut scenes detailing how Hannah came to be under these circumstances but are they carefully placed in or do they really dive into detailed memories about Hannah? Not really. The story is not the primary focus of Wanted: Dead, it's present and we move through it as the game goes on but does it even matter? That's the question I would ask. The game doesn't give you much context and I'd argue that you don't need to bother, it will more or less just bog you down.

If you've seen any snippets of the game, you might be questioning why do the characters sound like that? One of the more distinct parts of this game is the voice acting and while I don't want to be mean, this is some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard. The voice actress behind Hannah Stone has a Tommy Wiseau style inflection and tempo and that's not a compliment. But on the bright side, it had me cracking up constantly whenever a cut scene would come up. It just contributes to the flavour of the game and the insanity of it, were there not any better takes? Could they not come up with better dialogue? Was this intentional or is it just accidentally brilliant? I will credit Kristi Hughes as October and Stefanie Joosten as Vivienne for doing the best of the cast with what they were given.

I also wanted to talk more about the combat. It took me a little while to adjust to it, you can either fight from range with a rifle or close up with a katana. The gameplay overall lacks polish, the gunplay isn't great when compared with top tier AAA titles but yet it's serviceable. The enemy variety just isn't there either and if you get to the later levels, they're full of mini-bosses that can kill Hannah in just a couple of hits and it makes for a frustrating run through the area. There aren't many checkpoints either so if you lose focus at the wrong time, you'll be repeating sizeable chunks of the level. But despite all of that, I still had fun with it. It was challenging but I didn't find it unreasonable (compared to something like Cuphead or Hades).

There are a few mini-games in Wanted: Dead and if you weren't charmed by the confounding nature of the main campaign, the mini-games may be the deciding factor. There are a few games around things like eating ramen and singing karaoke but that description doesn't do them justice. They're so bananas and weird that I was mesmerized by them. I was laughing throughout my entire time in Wanted: Dead but these snippets took the cake.

I don't know if I've ever played a so bad its good game before so this is new for me. Wanted: Dead is so bizarre, it's full of these big choices that don't make sense or don't work as intended but I was enraptured all the same. Wanted: Dead isn't an easy game to complete and I do think its appeal will be highly niche. It's only going to appeal to a certain segment of the gaming population and only they will appreciate it for what it is. So I can't recommend it to everyone but if you're confident enough to give it a try, be patient while you adapt to it's style and willing to laugh along the way, you might see what I see in Wanted: Dead.

It is obvious that a lot of heart and soul has went into this game. The atmosphere is great, character designs are memorable and gameplay features seem to be very creative, albeit only on paper.

But, sadly, the game is extremely underwhelming. The gameplay is clunky and repetitive, the story is underdeveloped, the animations are awful and the game simply doesn't work that well on all fronts. I don't know whether this happened due to the inexperience of the developers or lack of development time, but it's such a shame that it turned out this way, since the enormous potential was there.

Sadly, this game can be enjoyed only as a form of guilty pleasure.