2024-09-02
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* this article is translated from ign us related content, the original author is tristan ogilvie, the translation is zoe, and the editor is kamui ye. reproduction without authorization is prohibited.
throughout the video games of "star wars", players have experienced the experience of wielding lightsabers and releasing the magnificent force countless times, but the protagonist of "star wars: desperadoes" changed the style of the picture. he swaggered into the bar, unhooked the holster clip, sat in a private room, and argued with others that these fancy moves were not as good as the reliable blaster that had accompanied him for many years.
this open world (or more precisely, a combination of several open worlds) action game is characterized by "gunfights" and "betrayal", which is very similar to the style of chewbacca's best friend. however, in essence, "star wars: desperadoes" does provide an experience similar to han solo. regardless of whether it is good or bad, it has a good-looking appearance and an attractive spirit of adventure, but from time to time it will reveal some "untidy" places, which makes people a little disappointed.
of course, given that this rollicking space western is set between the empire strikes back and return of the jedi (at the height of the empire’s power), the real han solo is frozen in carbonite, so instead we get kay vess, a wily thief who grew up in the criminal den of scum and villainy in the famous gambling city of canto bight.
early in the game, she quickly demonstrates her proficiency with a probe-style lockpick and a undying passion for the trade, though like characters before her, such as dash rendar and former jedi knight kyle katarn, she never truly steps out of han solo's shadow, becoming just another smuggler with a heart of gold.
the difference is that kai is always accompanied by a cute little pet, nix, who has short whiskers around his furry head that look like six fingers, so he is also very good at all kinds of sneaky operations. since they messed up the vault robbery at the beginning of the game, this funny duo had to drive their stolen spaceship "pioneer" to an emergency landing elsewhere, and came to the beautiful but dangerous toshara, a desert planet with the scenery of the african savannah.
over the next twenty hours, kai and nix will be involved in various risky rescue missions and shady underworld deals, and will travel and explore four major planets and pirate-infested space, trying to unite a group of like-minded outlaws in the process, just to finally return to canto bight to solve the mess left behind and erase the bounty placed on kai by the crime lord slilo.
this ruthless casino owner is the main antagonist in the outlaws. he looks quite intimidating, but he is neither as evil as emperor palpatine nor as sinister as grand admiral thrawn. he keeps a certain distance from the protagonist in most cases and only appears in a few cutscenes.
even so, desperado’s story is always fun to explore, with kai visiting familiar locations like jabba’s palace on tatooine, and the impressively recreated dungeons beneath it, as well as new ones like the massive wreck of a high republic-era cruiser on toshara, and dealing with a myriad of criminals, including a surly sullustan thug on akiva who barks orders at you with impunity while propping his feet up on a table made of his carbonidated brother (as captain solo himself has proven, carbonidation isn’t deadly at all).
while 2018’s solo: a star wars story did a similar job on the big screen, to no avail, the desperado’s crime saga feels like a fresh experience (at least in terms of gameplay) because it mostly dispenses with the idea of a lightsaber wielder versus a hero, and kai’s profit-driven motivations mean that the conflicts he faces rarely extend beyond the resistance and the empire, similar to andor.
in fact, this is a heist story through and through that happens to be set in the rich, beloved sci-fi universe that many of us grew up with. it’s a carefully reimagined take on that setting, just as the other star wars games have been. the desperado feels a bit like a guy ritchie crime drama, and by the end, i’d seen so many shocking betrayals and deceptions that it was about as tangled as the hdmi cables on the back of the tv in front of me. the desperado has a very resistance-like ending, with kai’s transformation from mercenary villain to empathetic partner.
while her ultimate goal may be much smaller than blowing up a death star, the world kai inhabits is surprisingly large. let’s be clear up front, this is not no man’s sky or starfield, so you can’t freely fly around every planet and land wherever you want.
however, apart from the relatively compact urban scenes on kijimi, the other sandbox areas in "desperado" are basically vast and form a sharp contrast with each other, from the iconic arid desert of tatooine (the sand is very harsh and will be everywhere) to the dense rainforest of akiva, which is full of criss-crossing river networks. you only need to unlock the water driving upgrade of the flying motorcycle to turn it into a convenient and fast highway.
kai's speeder bike can be upgraded with various extra features, such as the ability to perform a "bunny hop," which is a nice touch since it's the only way you can commute around each planet you explore. although you can see many speeders coming and going in desperado's busy settlements, people riding slow-moving dewbacks, and extremely tall at-st walkers patrolling the surroundings, you can't ride or drive any of these vehicles.
think back to grand theft auto 5, which was released ten years ago, where you could get any vehicle you could see, and last year's the legend of zelda: kingdom of tears, where you could create your own vehicle. in comparison, the types of vehicles available in desperado are too limited, which is a bit disappointing for a contemporary open-world adventure game. however, thanks to the new features that can be unlocked continuously, the overall gameplay has not become boring, but it's just okay.
assassin's creed: star wars
however, in desperado, the player's goal is not as simple as getting from a to b. kai will inevitably have to deal with major criminal forces in the process, and need to enter and exit various imperial bases and criminal forces' jurisdictions. these facilities usually have many different entry points. for example, you can choose to find an underground ventilation vent and crawl in, or use a grappling hook to swing over a high wall. you just need to carefully mark these points of interest with binoculars in advance (this is the basic operation of ubisoft games).
kai has a furry sidekick named nix, who’s crucial to the game’s stealth gameplay, as he’s basically a space cat drone that functions like a cell phone in watch dogs. you can hide behind cover and have him come to interact with switches or briefly distract security cameras so you can pass safely, and he can latch onto a guard’s face, giving you the chance to dash forward and knock an enemy into sleep, among other assists.
knicks is a very obedient child, so every time i finish a job, i will not hesitate to treat him to a satisfying meal from the street vendor. the reason why i like this eating game is not only that it is a pleasure to experience, but also because these games can provide me with a variety of special meals to further improve knicks' skills.
kay also has her own special set of skills when it comes to infiltrating high-security facilities, and while i'm not a fan of system shock-style minigames where you have to disable cameras and rewrite sentry turret positions, the symbol-based challenges are like trying to solve a crossword puzzle in a foreign language (although you can convert the symbols to numbers if that makes sense).
however, i never got tired of the rhythm-based lockpicking mechanic because it was as intuitive and efficient as a game of simon says, making it one of the quickest and most enjoyable ways to pick locks i’ve experienced in a long time.
but overall, desperado's stealth gameplay is still a little unrefined. sometimes stealth is too simple, just like my whistle-and-kill routine on multiple enemies in assassin's creed, luring enemies one by one into my hiding place and then piling their limp bodies together like firewood.
at other times, the stealth system was quite unpredictable, such as when i was performing a stealth assassination and the alarm was inexplicably triggered even though there were no other witnesses around. this would undo my efforts to hide myself, and the situation would become out of control, which would lead to other problems.
smugglers' gunfight
"desperado" provides players with a solid cover-shooting combat system with realistic sound feedback and strong smoke and gunfire effects. however, due to the lack of innovation in the overall gameplay, it does not have the novel design of "the squad", but is more like a conventional shooting game.
there were always several explosive barrels placed in the area whenever kai entered the combat zone, so i basically made full use of these flammable targets in each encounter, letting them reduce the number of stormtroopers and criminal gangs before wiping them out in a swoop, and then harvesting the remnants of the forces, and i had to be careful to reload the blaster to prevent it from overheating. there is always a challenge in the combat, that is, you have to find the right time to detonate the barrels to eliminate as many enemies as possible, but we have been playing this game for decades, so it is fun, but it is not enough to make desperado's combat design stand out.
the game's streamlined gunplay can be accelerated by triggering kay's "adrenaline rush," which charges up as she's attacked, slowing time down and allowing her to mark and hip-fire multiple targets at breakneck speed (basically the same mechanic as dead eye in the red dead redemption series). this skill is useful and cool most of the time, though i occasionally found kay, after a cool maneuver, shooting directly into the cover in front of her instead of the target i marked.
kai can only carry her own blaster and grenades at all times, which is a bit of a limitation, and although she can pick up and use weapons dropped by enemies (such as the a300 blaster rifle and the shield-equipped z-6 rotary machine gun), she can only discard them when the ammunition runs out. in short, you can assign nix to pick up these weapons for you, which is a human-pet interaction mechanism unique to this game.
but desperado's handling of these secondary weapons is eye-opening, and it feels like it's deliberately trying to force you to throw them away. you have to throw your weapons away every time you make a melee attack, you have to throw your weapons away when you crawl into a ventilation duct, and you have to throw your weapons away when you climb a wall or a ladder. who on earth came up with this? robocop?
if i pick up a sniper rifle, wouldn't it be reasonable to take it to a high vantage point to maximize its effectiveness? in reality, i often get killed by enemy snipers on high ground, even when i'm hiding behind cover, which is really annoying. why do those imperial scum have superb weapon carrying skills, but i don't?
although the combat system is very simple and repetitive, i became more and more interested in the combat as i progressed, especially after i was able to upgrade my blaster and gain more shooting modes, such as the ion module configuration, which significantly improves the impact on robots and temporarily destroys the enemy's shield, and the energy module configuration, which explodes after charging and hitting the target, and can severely punish those heavily armored gamorrean guards. this design kills three birds with one stone, which is equivalent to giving players three weapons that can be switched at will.
at the same time, i also appreciate that desperado further expands kai's various skills through in-game challenges (mainly to complement the traditional skill tree system), adding some bonus goals for completing challenges, such as performing a certain number of melee kills to unlock a very practical fake surrender action, which can catch those enemies who have already discovered you off guard.
still, the combat never quite reaches the flexibility or interest of the best of ubisoft’s own far cry games, and fights quickly become uninteresting save for the occasional encounter with a probe robot or a rankobeast (which simply adds bigger explosive barrels).
the car chase combat design of this game is even more difficult to complain about, but you have to admit that it has become the most humorous part of this game. players can no longer aim freely after getting in the car. instead, you can only try your best to avoid the gunfire of any pursuers, while waiting for your adrenaline to charge continuously until you can finally activate the bullet time continuous killing trick and cut off all these relentless tails.
the problem is that since you're usually shooting at enemies behind you, and the camera is so slow and takes so long to turn back to the front, i often ended up running into a rock i didn't have time to dodge right after executing a kill sequence, and ended up falling like the scouts chasing luke on the forest moon of endor. but if i sprinted toward a cliff face and then slammed on the brakes at the critical moment, i could watch my pursuers fly by me and smash into pieces on the cliff face, which was just as fun. at least the car chases in this game are equally dangerous to the enemies as they are to me.
since this is a star wars game, desperadoes has space combat. basically, every time i completed a hyperspace jump in kai's pathfinder, i would crash directly into a ship battle that was as realistic as a movie. whenever i got tired of the boring stealth activities on various planets, i would choose to sneak out from time to time to bully tie fighters. it is indeed a good way to vent my emotions. however, apart from adding an automatic turret and a rapid-fire cannon, i didn't do much to the ship because the opponents i encountered didn't seem to be too difficult.
i didn't really spend much time exploring space, because while you can find resources among the various floating debris, my inventory was always full of alloys and cloth stolen from various enemy bases, so there didn't seem to be much need to go out into the universe to find more resources. in this regard, desperadoes does not limit the number of items you can carry (except for weapons and health-replenishing "bacta potions"), which is a relief because i can pick up any resources i can find without worrying about the tedious inventory management like i did when playing starfield or resident evil.
the intrigues of criminal forces
although you may have seen similar content in many star wars games, one of the most interesting and novel features of desperadoes is the criminal network system, which reminds me of the reputation system in the outer worlds. in short, throughout the game, it is basically impossible to please all four criminal groups while completing a mission. you will always offend one of them. if you are on good terms with a criminal group, they may order their merchants to give you a big discount, and vice versa, you will not be able to move freely in the jurisdiction of the group that is on bad terms.
it's a clever system that makes each mission feel more meaningful than just ticking a box on a to-do list and moving on to the next one, because you need to carefully decide which gang to sell your stolen goods to and assess the benefits you get from it. at one point, i was so close to one faction that i could ruthlessly pressure a shop owner under his command to give me a rare item for free in exchange for my promise to do him a favor, but i had no intention of fulfilling my promise because i had already planned to trick them.
it is worth mentioning that this system is very different from the similar gameplay in mass effect, because the various decisions i made in desperado do not seem to have any significant impact on the overall outcome of the plot, but i can indeed get an authentic villain experience from it. after all, i need to constantly re-examine whether i choose to keep my promise in each transaction in order to maximize the benefits at the time. for example, before i was ready to explore the surface of tatooine, i first made sure that i had gained the favor of the hutt group, because jabba's thugs controlled a large area of the planet. if i want to complete a comprehensive exploration, i have to avoid unnecessary disputes as much as possible.
being able to explore unimpeded is key, as the game naturally leads you to secrets and opportunities as you travel around the four main planets. every time i overheard a conversation in a bar or read a forgotten data pad, the game would point me to a new treasure or a sure-fire bet on the horse race, giving me a sense of accomplishment from my own exploration, rather than the crammed tasks that most other open-world adventures seem to cram in.
the game does have some bloated and tedious side quests, like uninnovative speedrunning races and errands, but it also has a lot of great side quests, like trying to match holograms to specific landmarks (a bit like link's sheikah slate) to track down hidden treasures that are rich in rewards, like tons of credits and gear that can be used to customize kai's outfit and vehicle.
but where desperado really shines is in its ability to turn seemingly insignificant side objectives into exciting multi-stage adventures, which often surprised me. in one memorable example, a mission that had you searching for upgrades took a drastic turn, and suddenly i was thrown into the sarlacc's territory and directly launched into an exciting adventure of escaping giant sandworms.
it’s with these incredibly vivid and unexpected plot twists that desperadoes truly shines, combining countless star wars references with spectacular uncharted-style action-adventure scenes. i’ve completed many of these missions so far, and given that i missed a ton of similarly insignificant side opportunities early on, there are probably more i haven’t discovered yet.
however, to fully enjoy star wars outlaws, you have to learn to accept its flaws, especially in the ps5 version i played, which was extremely buggy. throughout the game, i witnessed npcs' guns fall out of their hands and then slide back into their hands like yo-yos; guards either got stuck in the terrain or clipped through the model; speeder bikes suddenly stopped when trying to drive down ramps; there were also recurring texture bugs, such as kai immediately falling through the model after climbing to a platform and pressing the crouch button to enter stealth mode; strange black screen issues when the ship was driving into space; climb buttons did not respond after interaction; confusing mission navigation; key mission objective prompts simply disappeared, forcing me to reload the game; driving a motorcycle and suddenly teleporting to another location on the map; and countless cases of dialogue audio completely disappearing.
it's definitely hard to overhear what someone is saying when they suddenly become the worst mime on tatooine, but i'm tired of saying this, but i'd still like to suggest that if these issues are so serious that you're likely to be put off, you'd better wait until ubisoft fixes them before you even start playing.
summarize
ironically, kai's ship is called the trailblazer, but there aren't many groundbreaking designs in star wars: outlaws, and many of the ideas in the game have already appeared in other open-world action-adventure games. instead, this game is more like the millennium falcon, a shabby spaceship pieced together from various recycled parts, but when it's at its best, it can still greatly satisfy the ultimate fantasy of star wars fans.
the game’s clever criminal network system makes players feel the weight of every decision, and some of the missions are so creative and surprising. having a friend like nix by your side adds an extra dimension to kay’s unremarkable smuggler role and gives her a more useful set of skills. but even these advantages can’t hide the game’s rigid and repetitive stealth and combat gameplay, not to mention a series of optimization issues that were difficult to ignore at the time of its launch. but needless to say, everyone should have expected it.
advantage
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