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As much as we try to resist the pull of nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, it’s hard to deny that there are certain things consigned to the dustbin of videogame history that still occasionally inspire a sense of longing. The kinds of singleplayer B-games that filled out the release schedules of the early ’00s, for example. Games that, in lieu of the polish that came with larger budgets, offered pleasures of a frequently disreputable nature and stuffed in as many influences and ideas as possible, in the hope that at least some would stick. It’s a longing clearly shared by the maker of Wanted: Dead, Japanese developer Soleil, and 110 Industries, the newly formed publisher that commissioned its creation. They don’t make ’em like this any more, the thinking seems to go, so perhaps someone should.

The game certainly shows an effort to live up to the past. Its enemies come apart like sacks of offal when introduced to your sword. Stun one and you’re treated to a lovingly motion-captured animation of protagonist Hannah Stone gutting , decapitating or otherwise obliterating her quarry. In cutscenes, meanwhile, the camera lingers with similar salaciousness on shots of Stone in the shower, as she washes off blood between missions, and in slow pans up the legs of assorted female characters – areminder that some aspects of its forebears have aged considerably worse than others.