Wanted: Dead Review

"Slice & Dice"

Campaign

February 20, 2023 at 6:08pm
By Jason Stettner

This is a rather interesting and unique sort of offering. It kind of punches above its weight and while it hits the mark in some areas, in others it’s just bizarre. In the game you take on the role of Hannah Stone, you’re part of a Hong Kong police squad going by Zombie Unit.

The narrative is based around a number of days in the life of the team with a small bit of extra focus on the lead character that only really gets revealed once you get towards the end. The story was honestly quite thrown into the backdrop of what felt like random levels.

This tale is delivered through some cinematics and then also strangely anime sequences. There aren’t too many levels here, but some parts will take you awhile as the game has an absolutely brutal set of difficulty spikes to it.

It’s something that could take like four hours but will likely take you longer as the checkpoints can be sparse alongside the game having these insanely brutal long battling sequences that are stuffed with spongy enemies.

You’ll also face off against strange boss fights which were alright but that ending one was particularly spongy, to the max actually. Along the way while playing there are collectibles to gather and mini games to take in which were actually quite awesome. This includes the like of a ramen eating game or doing karaoke.

There are training missions too, and all this extra content can be enjoyed at any point afterwards from the main menu. Speaking of replaying content the game features new game plus alongside extra hardcore difficulties to dive into.

Gameplay

It’s a third person shooter technically, but the main focus of the game is using your katana to stab or slash enemies. You’ll be gaining points to unlock some abilities that make things easier but largely you’re just cutting stuff. The guns while quite in-depth with customization options aren’t really at the forefront of the action.

That being said they have well done mechanics such as using cover or gathering multiple weapons for shooting as well. The visuals for the game actually do shine quite well, it looks great for the most part. There are frequent performance issues however. I experienced this on the Xbox Series X where it’s likely 1440p at 60fps with HDR support.

It’s also very gory, filled with excellent dismemberment and some reactive environments. The AI isn’t too bright, but fairly aggressive and as I said, rather spongy at times which is annoying. I liked the sense of freedom you’d get between levels, but regular missions are incredibly linear.

The Conclusion

Wanted: Dead is perhaps too ambitious, at times punching above its weight while mostly missing the mark and also being brutally difficult at times. It’s a weird mix of this zany way to learn about the characters which I liked, but I didn’t really feel like I knew them much afterwards regardless.

Some of the voice acting was a bit weak as well, but some characters did stand out. The performance wasn’t the best and the difficulty was just too brutal at times which could have easily been remedied by having more checkpoints or just making some areas less stocked with the same foe in a tight space.

I did have a few crashes, but for the most part for the smaller scope of this game it actually was alright at times. It’s just this weird balance of me having fun, but being weirded out and ultimately being disappointed by how it doesn’t fully come together to the heights it could have potentially reached.

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Wanted: Dead Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Plan of Attack

Rating Overall: 5.2