Old Script
Failed WANTED Dead video still haunting me…
Wanted Dead is a 2023 third person cover shooter/melee action game developed by Soleil and published by 110 Industries.
You play as Hannah Stone, a war criminal that is released to lead Zombie Squad, a Hong Kong special police force with members Herzog, Doc and Cortez.
Herzog is the group failed standup comedy, freak master and marksman who is so sleazy Leisure Suit Larry would tell him to tone it down.
Doc, as the name states, is the team medic and company depresso espresso alcoholic.
Cortez is the Demoman without the Scottish complex who likes video games.
The squad is under the supervision of Captain Albert Simmons, your (insert voice clips of police captains from 80’s movies) on a job well flubbed.
Now, I don’t know whether to call this a review or just a love letter to a trash fire that most have extinguished from their minds. So, I’m just going to go with the flow and see what sticks.
This game has lived rent free in my mind since I played it in 2023. The psychic damage that it caused has left me baffled at my own willingness to drown inside this strangely constructed, poorly produced title from a developer I had never heard of.
My journey started with this game as all purchases do: an ad before a YouTube video, which I skipped.
An hour or so later, it replayed. From there, the research for other videos about Wanted: Dead began, leading to Maximilian Dood. With that revealing, the only consistent effort made by the game was the insanity, in which Max indulged in wholeheartedly.
Cracking jokes and having fun while indulging in the quality. Safe to say, he sold me the game. I bought it, played it through once and sat with it. Two feelings were standing out: confusion and enjoyment.
Then I watched The Electric Underground’s video, a hardcore schmup and game critic who places an emphasis on deeper gameplay mechanics and honestly, he comes off as an elitist.
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But I like his videos nonetheless because his reviews offer an interesting look into game design that somebody like me would find informative. Piggybacking off his thoughts are placing my feelings into a more tangible form in which this review (?) was born.
Wanted: Dead (Bon Jovi Sting) is one of those games you play and remember for life, not due to it being a masterpiece in terms of narrative quality or themes or even standout moments that haven’t been done before.
The voice acting is (clip of Hannah) … voice acting.
This has the WEIGHT of what a Tommy Wiseau film is like to view at 3 a.m. half-awake on the couch.
Wanted: Dead (Bon Jovi Sting) IS “so bad it’s good” from its awkward breaks in pacing with 2D animated cutscenes, minigames of different genres, stiff combat, poor narrative, an odd lack of replay rewards and poor audio mixing all around.
It reminds me of a small piece of a gaming generation I was too young to have played or remembered properly.
Wanted: Dead (Sting) is a game you buy from the bargain bin in 2013 from Walmart on a Thursday afternoon because it was six dollars in a “buy one, get two free” deal.
The only way I would have SEEN a game like this, would have been from a YouTube video on a channel that used to edit for Machinima, before making it out on his own and becoming Punished Author, Robbed of Income.
The combat in its jank and stiff nature leads to some badass moments.
(Cut to montage)
Casual conversations between the Zombie Squad lead to attempts at team building and emotional connection, but the voice acting squanders that opportunity.
Poor audio mixing in cutscenes. And yet they’re shot and directed competently. Especially, the 2D sequences all look fantastic.
Even the few emotional beats that come almost out of nowhere if you’re checked out, stick heavily. Not because they’re terrible or offensive to a group. Its because they have more effort and general artistic direction than most of the other scenes in the game. The last time thing we see of Captain Simmons with General Richter, has a buildup of tension that is nowhere else as an endcap to Ritcher’s boss fight.
However, the real smoking gun of this tonal whiplash comes from the final scene in the game. It has sequel bait written all over it, but the amount of care speaks volumes in the confidence that someone had while making Wanted: Dead. I’m going to play the cutscene; I did small edits to save time.
Play the Cutscene
