Recently I finished Desperados 3, from the dev Mimimi, which you may know from Canned Ham's thread asserting that the studio went bankrupt because they dared to put a "negress" on the cover of their newest game.
I know several of you play Desperados. The gist of it is that it's a mixed stealth-action tactical RTS game in an isometric perspective, ability to rotate the camera freely. Despite being isometric, the graphics are actually quite detailed and beautiful. The premise is that you are controlling a gang of five qUiRkY misfits taking on some eViL robber baron and his enforcer in the Old West/South (the maps are in Colorado, New Mexico, and Louisiana).
The main conceit of the game's stealth system is that there enemies have vision cones, if you're seen they fill from the guard outwards, and depending on obstacles, distance, lighting etc. there are two types of vision (can only see you when you're standing, can see you either way). Each character has their different abilities (laying traps, blinding enemies, distracting them, etc.), there's different kinds of guards, yadda yadda. The maps are balanced so that you can sometimes shoot your way through situations, but you just don't have enough firepower or ammo to do that all the time. The best missions are the ones which naturally funnel you towards both stealth sections and shootouts.
What's cool is that the stealth is actually SOMEWHAT realistic; if you just walk in front of someone you won't alert them and have to hide, they'll fucking see you and mag dump on you. Despite being isometric, it's one of the most genuinely cinematic games I've played, in the sense that it feels like recreating a movie. You have a character, for example, whose gimmick is the seductress. She can distract men, lure them off, but has shitty offensive capabilities. A common trick with her is to lead a guy off around a corner and then clobber him with your men. Or, another thing you can do is toss down hogtied guards to lure in other guards. Or, oftentimes you need to clear a path where several guards are checking each other, so you have to set up synchronized ambushes to take everyone down, or toss distractables like coins/blinding perfumes to cut vision, etc. The most fanciful feature is a voodoo queen (that's fucking awesome) who can turn two enemies into voodoo dolls of each other; like, if you cut one guard's throat, the other guard's throat will get cut too. She also has a cute kitty cat that can be used to distract guards, and they'll coo over it.
The game advertises itself as a narrative-driven, which is a laugh. The characters are all pretty entertaining, but it's shallow as a puddle. The story ends up being more or less that Evil White Robber Baron has fucked each of them over a different way, and also he enslaves people to work in mines because he is so evil. It's like something a child would write. There's no character development or anything. It's just a quip fest like a Marvel movie, and like a Marvel movie is entertaining but also worthless.
Overall, it was compelling, one of the better games I've played this year and kept my attention up to the end. The final boss fight is brilliant, it has the idea that your main dude is surrounded in a duel, so he'll definitely get gunned down, so you have to figure out how to position the other characters to wipe them all out in one big synchronized attack. I really liked the game.
They also made a samurai (not Sengoku Jidai, but Edo) version of this shtick, which I bought but haven't played yet.
PS I hate the robber baron's character. He's the sniveling aristocrat kind of character, which doesn't fit the setting. Leviticus Cornwall is a better portrayal of a robber baron.
