Wanted: Dead was provided to us by 110 Industries and Plan of Attack for review. Thank you!
From the minds behind Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive comes Wanted: Dead, a hybrid slasher/shooter that's all about kicking ass. Following a week in the life of an elite Hong Kong police squad, you will be put on a mission to uncover a major conspiracy happening. From a third person perspective, you will brutalize your enemies, riddle them with bullets, and utilize flashy finishing moves in a cyberpunk world. As a love letter to sixth gen consoles, this is going to be a game to remember.
Wanted: Dead is a game that I did enjoy, but had some glaring issues I wasn't the biggest fan of. Starting with the good, the game looks great and melee combat is flashy. I love the finishers and chopping people in half was always really cool to see. I also really like that they went for a mixture of swordplay and third-person shooting, some moments where I switched between the two felt great.
On the bad side, the combat overall felt a bit lacking. The fighting was fun, but I would have loved to see more of an expansion to the melee with more combos when swapping between the X and Y buttons. I am also not the biggest fan of games where enemies can be bullet sponges and can eat up half a clip to kill. The story was iffy, but I didn't mind it much since I prioritized the gameplay more. Overall, it's a decent game that I am happy I played, but $60 feels a little much for what is being offered. The good news is, if you decide to get the game, you will be able to enjoy it on the Steam Deck!
At max performance, Wanted: Dead can actually hit 30 FPS in a some areas, but it doesn't stick to this for long. The game can easily drop into the 20s with a drain of 24W - 25W which is way too much. But, with a couple of setting tweaks and FSR in-game, this can be easily remedied!
Through my testing, I decided to start off with a battery saving 30 FPS build. I found 40 to feel very smooth, but there were a lot of times the game would drop or stutter when in certain combat situations or moving around too fast. With the recommended build, I used a combination of Medium and Low settings to get a stable 30 FPS with an average drain of 12W - 15W, which I felt was pretty good. The game still looked quite nice and held up in every scenario...except for one where I was cornered by 6 guys with explosions going around!
The biggest performance drain was shadows, which pushed the device much harder than any other quality setting. So for our quality build, I prioritized using no upscaler and keeping shadows at Medium. Anything higher than medium didn't change the visuals enough to justify the increased draw. So with a mix of medium and high settings and no TDP limit, the game was able to push through and look great while doing it.
The last build I worked towards was 40 FPS. This one was a bit harder to do than quality and the battery build due to the stutters the game has from time to time. At 30 FPS, this wasn't as noticeable and very much reduced at the lower framerates, but even when the game is on the lowest possible quality settings, 40 FPS still has more noticeable moments. I did try forcing resolution down through Steam, which significantly helped the performance in-game, but it blew up the pause menu, which you need to access skills and modify weapons.
Because of that, I kept the game at 1280x800. If you can withstand the blown up menu, I highly recommend forcing the resolution to 1024x600 and using SteamOS FSR to upscale. The game will still look decent and performance will be more stable, but again, it will be harder to actually use the menu.
I didn't encounter any controller issues, though I felt the third-person shooting camera movement was a bit too fast and I had to change the sensitivity. There were no visual bugs either, so other than the performance issues, the game performed as intended!
Wanted: Dead is a mixed bag for me that I ended up enjoying more than disliking. The game itself is quite fun and I loved slicing people up while looking around the gorgeous world. The shooting and basic combat mechanics were a bit of a let down though and I was hoping for more variety. I also didn't care for the minigames, but it is a nice change of pace from the combat. I would say wait for a sale on this one as I did still enjoy it and find it worthwhile to buy, but it wasn't as memorable as I had hoped. Luckily, if you do decide to get it, this is one you will be able to enjoy on the Steam Deck!
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Update 7/4/2022: Tested Devil May Cry HD Collection with the updated Proton GE 7-24. It does run and also gets rid of all pre-rendered cutscenes that don't work including the menu cutscenes. It does not fix them, just gets rid of them entirely so you do not have to skip them. If the cutscenes won't work anyways, this will save a little more time.
Updated recommended build with Proton GE 7-24
As someone who loves to relive the classics and play games from the beginning, Devil May Cry HD Collection was first on my list to play on my Steam Deck after my initial testing of how powerful the deck could be. DMC HD is the remastered collection of the first three Devil May Cry games, all released on the PS2 initially. With the first game helmed by Hideki Kamiya, known for his studio Platinumgames and franchises like Bayonetta, this game created a new genre and quickly became a major success for Capcom and Kamiya.
Luckily, these games are older ones, which means optimization for the best playthrough is relatively easy. With full controller support, DMC HD immediately recognizes the Steam Deck controller without needing to fine-tune keybindings, though it does not show Steam Deck controller icons when playing. In-game settings don’t really need to be touched with either, though my resolution defaulted to 1920x1080, so I changed that to the native 1280x800. DMC 1 ran with a solid 60 FPS for almost the entire game, with minor slowdowns when coming out of real-time cutscenes. DMC 2 and 3 did experience some slowdowns throughout the game, primarily DMC 3, but otherwise maintained 60 FPS through all the important parts like the fighting and boss battles. And with battery usually staying below 10W, there wasn’t much to complain about with performance.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of issues that may inhibit your experience with the game. In all 3 games, pre-rendered cutscenes do not work. You may hear the audio, but it will be a black screen. You can just hit the start button and it’ll skip and go right back to the game, but you will miss out on the cutscenes. I did attempt to fix this with different proton versions, but none worked with Proton Experimental doing the same as base proton and GE stopping the game from loading. This could be a big deal to some, which is totally understandable. My alternative was to watch the cutscenes on YouTube after I had skipped them. There’s not many to skip in DMC 1, but DMC 2 and 3 have a chunk more with 3 being the bulk.
While Steam says this game’s deck support is unknown, I would say this could be marked playable. Other than the cutscenes and minor slowdowns in DMC 2 and 3, the game is in a very playable state with a solid 60 FPS throughout the game, low battery usage, and automatic recognizing of the controller. If you do not mind the cutscene issue, this is a very solid way to playthrough the classic DMC games. Also, just a heads up, DMC 3 kicked my ass in certain parts, but I think that was because I am terrible at the game.
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Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back!
