I started Desperados III with John Cooper and the boy, easing into the basics while getting used to that dusty cowboy life in a Mexican desert village.
At first I picked Hard, then switched to the actual Desperados difficulty. In the end that felt like the right choice, because no matter what difficulty you choose, the real technique is still save-scumming: F5 to save, F8 to load. On Desperados mode, you cannot pause the game to queue abilities, but you can still control your saves, and honestly the save system matters more. So I stuck with Desperados difficulty—the outlaw way.
The opening is basically hide-and-seek. You wait for the cowboy to knock, then have Cooper’s son sprint to the wooden door and shut it. After that the tutorial keeps layering on mechanics. You throw a coin to rile up a horse, the horse kicks the female gunfighter unconscious, and when the male gunman comes over to check what happened, Cooper takes him out with a knife.
Then it’s up to the rooftops. Two enemies are covering each other, so the boy tosses a coin toward the guard standing near the cliff. His attention shifts the wrong way, giving Cooper an opening to knife the other one. Right after that, Cooper throws his knife again and quickly deals with the cliffside guard when he turns back.
Moving forward, there is a narrow path along the broken cliff and a section of planks collapsing under you. Then you climb upward using vines. One thing that stood out early: enemy vision is strong, but their hearing is almost nonexistent. Mostly they can hear coins landing. You can sprint behind them, shut doors, do all kinds of noisy-looking things, and they barely react. It feels like a bug.
Back on the roof, I released the crane load and let the cargo drop straight down onto two enemies, killing both. Cooper then finished a third with his throwing knife. One important detail: after Cooper sticks someone with the knife, you need to retrieve it before you can throw it again. I do not remember whether the knife itself has a cooldown, but his dual revolvers definitely do. The kid wants a gun of his own, and Cooper basically tells him to keep practicing with throwing knives first. The scene ends with him trying repeatedly and not even managing to stick one into the tree.
Chapter One
The place may have been called Flagstone or something close to that. A train is stopped at the entrance of a tunnel piled up with gravel, and gunfire is already breaking out. There is one detail in that cinematic I really liked: after the shot, that drifting strand of gunsmoke looks incredibly stylish. That alone may have been what pushed me to finally play Desperados III.
What makes this game difficult is not raw action. The real challenge is deciding who to eliminate first, in what order, and when multiple enemies have to go down at the same time. After each kill, you also have to move bodies quickly into grass, water, or some other hiding spot. The game itself keeps reminding you of these basics anyway. It also says that failure and repetition are part of the experience, and that is absolutely true. I like high difficulty for exactly that reason.
Of course, the ultimate challenge is still competing against other people—AI is getting absurdly strong now too, which is funny in its own way—but within this game, chasing stars is its own obsession. I replayed one section just to earn a single star, and it took close to two hours. At least by then I had started adapting.
Soon Cooper comes across a man in purple being held at gunpoint by two enemies. This is where the game introduces the left Shift slow-motion showdown system, the programmable moment. On Hard and below, time pauses so you can line up your actions comfortably. On Desperados difficulty, it does not pause at all—you have to execute in real time. It is like trying to draw on a swinging pendulum. On lower settings, the pendulum stops and lets you sketch first.
That difference is a big reason the higher setting feels so good. I also looked up Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines and got the impression it may be even harder. I may try that after this. Another thing I appreciate here is that you can save and quit anytime.
Cooper has barely finished feeling smug about saving the man in purple when that same man points a gun at him. Cooper immediately raises his hands. Then a shot rings out—but the one who drops is an enemy behind him. The stranger says now neither of them owes the other anything. That moment of mutual respect works well.
He introduces himself as McCoy, a doctor. McCoy carries a very useful bag: it can lure weaker enemies over, and when opened it releases a dizzying gas. I tested that immediately. One guard came over, got stunned, and McCoy killed him with a syringe-like weapon. I will not speculate on how that thing works. He also has a sniper rifle, but only a single bullet. After the demonstration, the rifle was empty. Ammunition in general feels scarce.
Originally I assumed enemies with guns would naturally provide more bullets, even if they were using different weapons. In a lot of games, you would just pick up their guns and ammo and keep going. Here that does not really happen, probably to keep the difficulty up.
One of the stars for the mission requires not using guns at all. That would add a lot of time, because you would need constant reloads just to hit perfect timing windows. I skipped it. I also failed to rescue all the hostages. I was not aiming for perfection.
The mission keeps alternating between splitting Cooper and McCoy up and bringing them back together. At one point you can push a boulder onto enemies and kill them that way. Even then you have to be careful not to make too much noise or let anyone report what happened. If an alarm goes up and reinforcements arrive, everything becomes much harder.
Cooper can manage up to three kills at nearly the same time—if a few seconds apart still counts as simultaneous. McCoy is more limited, probably just one, unless he had sniper ammo, in which case he could contribute to a second kill. Near the end I reloaded specifically to get a three-man bomb kill at the same moment and clear that objective.
There were still a few red dots left on the map afterward. When I went over, I found some enemies lying on the ground but not fully dead yet, so I had to finish them off. One was hiding in a building and would not come out no matter what happened outside. So I never completely cleaned the map. Eventually I went back, used the bomb to open the path, and cleared the first battle.
At the end, McCoy says that if you ever need a professional, you should call him.
I also never used the bandage. You only have two health points, and the moment I lost one, I would usually reload. Realistically I could have just used the bandage and moved on, but that is how I played. And yes, I do not like using guides. I prefer stumbling through games on my own.
Later, when the second act started, the game kept restarting itself with an 8.54 GB version.
Then with a 9 GB version, I replayed the first mission again on Desperados difficulty, earned a few extra badges, and kept testing whether things were stable.
