Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive is the first game in the Desperados series, released in July 2001. Featuring a cinematic narrative structure and quintessential aesthetics of the Wild West genre, the game is often considered to be the best game in the series, and one of the best examples of the real-time tactics genre.
Plot[]
Set in the southern United States, the game takes place in 1881, not long after the end of the American Civil War. Several trains belonging to the Twinnings & Co. railroad company have been robbed in the last few months by an unknown gang of bandits. The company has offered $15,000 to anyone who can stop the menace. Bounty hunter John Cooper meets with the company's co-director B. Smith in El Paso, Texas, and accepts the task in spite of Smith's seeming reluctance. Cooper then sets off to Louisiana to gather his old partners to assist him with the mission. Cooper frees Samuel "Sam" Williams from a cotton plantation near Opelousas, saves "Doc" McCoy from a public hanging for fraud and swindle in Jennings, and then rescues Kate O'Hara from captivity in Baton Rouge for her cheating in a poker tournament.
Back in El Paso, Cooper and his team meet Marshal Jackson, who accuses a bandit named Pablo Sanchez for the train robberies. Cooper and his team follow Pedro, Sanchez's second-in-command, to the gang's secret hideout in an abandoned fortress, where they take Sanchez captive and hand him over to the authorities in El Paso. While Cooper is questioning Smith about his dealings with El Diablo, an unseen assassin kills Smith and escapes. Incriminated in the businessman's murder, Cooper and his team evade Jackson's men and flee El Paso in a hurry. A day later, they free Sanchez from the prison of Fortezza in New Mexico, and Cooper convinces Sanchez to help him find El Diablo, which would both clear Cooper's name and let Sanchez have his revenge on El Diablo for double-crossing him. Initially reluctant, Sanchez agrees to work with Cooper after he learns that El Diablo attacked his fortress hideout and killed every member of his gang.
Cooper and his team entering El Diablo's hideout.
In Socorro, the team break into a saloon owned by Carlos, one of El Diablo's right-hand men, and look for information about El Diablo. After robing a local bank containing loot plundered by Carlos' gang, Cooper and his team leave Socorro and stop to rest at an abandoned staging post owned by a Chinaman, who happens to be an old acquaintance of Cooper's. Jackson's posse attacks them at night, burns the hotel and kills the Chinaman. Cooper and his team annihilate Jackson's entire posse, and Mia Yung, the Chinaman's teenage daughter, joins the team in hopes of avenging her father's death.
The team then travel to the city of Grants by train; once there, they split up. Cooper, Sam and Sanchez ride north to the Silver Creek mine, where the secret meeting of El Diablo's men is scheduled to take place, while Doc, Kate and Mia stay behind in Grants to keep their escape route clear. During the meeting, one of El Diablo's agents kills Carlos with a poisoned knife and orders his men to get rid of the corpse. On the way back to Grants, Cooper, Sam and Sanchez run into Mia, who informs them that El Diablo’s men have captured Doc and Kate and put them aboard the train, while she managed to escape. Cooper and his team board the train, which takes them to a ghost town called Deadstone. They free Doc from El Diablo's men and pursue the bandits who have ridden away with Kate. At the entrance of El Diablo's hideout, the whole team reassemble and enter a large cave, there they fall into a trap. Cooper and his team free themselves with the help of Mia's pet monkey, Mr. Leone, and chase after El Diablo. However, Cooper confronts El Diablo alone and enters his personal quarters high up in the cave, where he is surprised to learn that El Diablo is actually Jackson. Cooper engages Jackson in a gunfight, which he wins. Critically injured, Jackson falls to his death, ending the menace of El Diablo once and for all.
Gameplay[]
The player is able to control six characters. Each character has five distinct special abilities. Some characters can also perform some context based actions. The player is required to complete certain objectives in missions. There are 25 missions in total including the six tutorial missions. Although all out gunfight is possible in some missions, the player often needs to rely on stealth to complete the mission objectives.
The player can use a "spyglass" function on NPCs to see their fields of vision. The color of the field of vision (or cone of vision) is an information for the player about an enemy's awareness and intentions. If the cone is green, it means the person is calm. Similarly, a yellow cone signifies suspicion, and a red one means the NPC has spotted one of the characters. Some colors indicate a special status such as a pink cone, meaning the NPC has become attracted to Kate, or a black cone, meaning they have been hit by Mia's blowpipe and become berserk. The player can also use a mini map which shows the characters as green points, enemies as red points, civilians as blue points, collectibles as yellow crosses, horses as brown points and other animals as grey points.
Another special feature introduced in the game is the Quick Action, in which certain actions - from running to a certain place up to using a weapon against a pre-targeted enemy - can be 'pre-programmed' and called upon immediately when needed. For instance, by programming his revolver with Quick Action, Cooper can either concentrate all three shots that he can fire on a single opponent or divide them between up to three targets without having to move the mouse cursor around.
The characters can ride horses and interact with the environment. Certain objects can be dropped over the enemies and some structures can be blown up with a TNT barrel.
Characters[]
Cooper and his team in Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive
Playable Characters[]
Non-playable Characters[]
- B. Smith
- Bill
- Lola
- Charles Clayton
- Melissa
- Marshal Jackson
- Carlos
- El Diablo
Missions[]
Louisiana in Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive
New Mexico in Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive
- 0. Demo
- 1. An Old Friend
- 2. Southern Comfort
- 3. Smoke Signals
- 4. Hang'm High!
- 5. Doc McCoy's Cabin
- 6. High Stakes
- 7. A Woman's Weapons
- 8. Into the Lion's Den
- 9. Like a Thief in the Night
- 10. Lullaby for Four Aces
- 11. Ambush at Snake Pass
- 12. Escape from El Paso
- 13. The Walls of Fortezza
- 14. They Called Him Grizzly
- 15. Dance with the Devil
- 16. A Fistful of Dollars
- 17. To the Last Bullet
- 18. The Magnificent Six
- 19. Blood Money
- 20. Little China Girl
- 21. Piggies in the Middle
- 22. Showdown in Deadstone
- 23. At the Gates of Hell
- 24. Deaths Overture
- 25. Inferno
Locations[]
- El Paso, Texas
- Louisiana
- New Mexico
Trivia[]
- Initially the game was named as Death Valley and had elements of fantasy including zombies. But later the idea was dropped and the name was changed to Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive.
- Spellbound worked on an add-on containing several new missions called as webisodes, but it was never released due to the silence from publisher side. The maps of these webisodes can be seen in a video released by THQ Nordic for the 20th anniversary of the series.
- On July 2018, an update for the game was released by THQ Nordic that improved compatibility with newer Windows OS, as well as ports to Mac OS and Linux and added more foreign dubs that were previously missing from most digital versions and included the demo mission. But the update does not support cheat, full keyboard layout and roll 'n' shoot feature which used to work in previous version.
- There are several modded missions available which have completely new mission objectives and story. The missions can be found in official Discord server of Desperados.
Typography[]
There are two main typographies used across the game: PlugCapsSSK and Lydian. PlugCapsSSK is widely used in game menus and in background images for mission maps, while Lydian is heavily used to display texts and readable information to the player, as well as for the dialogs of characters. Lydian is also used in the load/save screen of the game, as well as the loading screen of a mission and the briefing information in the pause menu. Desperados uses the Bold Italic variant of Lydian, known as Lydian Std Bold Italic.
Gallery[]
Cover[]
Wallpaper[]
