Desperados III

Desperados 3 is a hard game. It’s a hard game on the Playstation 4 even though the control scheme is innovative and clever. It’s a hard game on its own merits and it keeps kicking my butt.

And yet I keep going back for more butt kicks. Please Sire May I Have Another.

Much has been made of the big “Quick Save Now – No Really You Really Should – hey you haven’t saved for like 90 seconds – are you sure you really want to keep paddling out to sea like this?”

In a game of impressively large open game maps, it seems strange to find myself inching across it in tiny increments – advance 10 paces and try a move, fail, reload, advance 5 paces, quicksave and try a tiny variation of the move.

I curse like a trooper – or a cowboy – everytime I reflexively save when I wanted to quick load. I curse when my tiny character picks up a dead body when I intend to climb a ladder. Desperados 3 makes me turn the air blue despite the scorched deserty settings of the game world. I should point out that I am not usually so potty-mouthed in my normal life.

So far my favourite element of the game is the post completion “replay” that shows diagramatically each of your character’s progress across the map.