Technical problems plague this otherwise very fun third-person shooter

User Rating: 7 | Wanted: Weapons of Fate PC
By natasha8384 | Review Date:
Quite frankly this game would deserve somewhere around 8 if it's not for very annoying technical problems. Specifically, the game crashes on Vista (haven't tried on XP) systems that meet all requirements. More specifically: you may experience a crash (CTD) with an "out of memory" message ... and here we are talking about 4 GB RAM. The second type of CTD you may experience seems to imply a combo problem between DirectX and C++ exception. No problems playing other, much more demanding games, including Crysis, FEAR 2, CoD 5, etc. Since, I'm playing Steam version, it could be that it's just Steam version that is causing problems.

Anywho, in between CTDs, the game is quite enjoyable as in an enjoyable gameplay. The story is ok, but nothing you haven't heard before. Graphics and sound are also nothing exceptional, but still within the range of being very acceptable. The game itself runs smooth.

Positive:
- graphics: 8/10 (nice action settings too)
- sound: 7.5/10
- gameplay: 8.5/10
- game mechanics: 7.5/10 (no crouch, no jump)
- story: acceptable
- action/shooting: non-stop
- AI: not bad -- takes cover, runs at you, doesn't die easily
- length: below average (maybe 5 - 8 hours depending on your style of play)
- replayability: depends on you, but there is no multiplayer of any kind so that will definitively reduce re-playability potential for many

Negative:
- technical problem/bugs/CTDs
- limited variety of weapons -- two through most of the game
- somewhat repetitive corridor-like action in multiple parts
- there is an AI kind that runs/sprints at you with a knife -- couldn't figure out how to defend at close range although the knife icon is on screen (as many times you see on consoles). Annoying since you have to waste half a clip to bring the runner down
- no manual saves and even if you reach a checkpoint and close the game, next time you start the game you'll have to repeat most of the level
- somewhat console-ish feel, but not as bad as some other games (still you can see that the reticule is *console-big* rather than precision driven as in typical made for PC games
- expensive game for what it is
- the game difficulty unbalanced with heavy punishment left for the last quarter of the game as a result of a combo of increased AI resilience and the player ammo scarcity

Overall, this is not a bad game. It's quite entertaining and maybe the most similar experience (and the game quality) you can get from games like Stranglehold, Infernal, El Matador, and maybe to some extent GoW. The quality is definitively not Max Payne-ish high, but it's not bad either. There is nothing too original in this game -- the two main tricks the game is using is the bullet time and the curved shots, but they are well implemented and easy to use on PC (with keyboard and mouse). Definitively two biggest problems are the relatively high price to game length ratio and CTD bugs. On the other side the game is a very good third-person shooter that may provide entertainment and fun for many who like the third-person shooters. I'd say wait for the patch and the price to drop to maybe $30 if you'd just like to play this type of game now and then. Overall score: 6.8/10 (1 point taken away due to frequent CTDs).

Original: 03/24/09
Revised the estimated gameplay length: 05/04/09

Other Helpful Reviews for Wanted: Weapons of Fate

Load Comments (0)