Invisible Inc Review

Summary

A fun turn-based squad style tactical stealth game that borrows heavily from X-COM set in a cyberpunk world.

Review

It takes a while for me to play all the games out there. A Steam friend had been playing a lot of Invisible Inc and the reviews were really good so I picked it up during a sale. It languished for months before getting the CPU cycles to show itself off.

I'm definitely an X-COM fan. The original first and second saw a lot of action but I didn't care for the third. For the recent reboot, I liked the first one but a bug kept me from finishing it and I didn't have a good save game. I still haven't played the second one, as I am waiting for a good sale.

Stealth

The primary focus of Invisible Inc is stealth. It isn't pure stealth and you kill plenty of guards, but you simply can't go in guns blazing. The default mode shows you all enemies' lines of sight so you can plan where to hide and how to approach. The less stealthy you are the more alert the enemy is. This can snowball into dangerous situations.

Alarm

The alarm system provides time pressure. Every turn the alarm increases. This provides tension as you decide between a slow and careful approach or a fast a reckless approach.  You can stealthily knock out guards, but they will wake up and cause trouble later, or you can kill them which provides an immediate increase to the alarm.

Hacking

The hacking system in this game is really fun. There are a variety of objects to be hacked, like security cameras, corporate safes, and databases. You have limited energy to spend for hacking so you must prioritize. Every game you choose two programs used for hacking and those really influence the game. One program might hack quickly while another hacks slowly but is really cheap.

Improving Squad

There are three ways to improve members of your squad. There are augments which provide a permanent, usually passive, bonus. There are items like guns and stim packs. You can improve your skills, like speed, strength, and hacking. Most of those can be purchased with money, although you need to find (and hack) terminals in-game to access item shops. 

Missions

You start with two squad members and can acquire two more. The only way to acquire them is to run missions. You can also acquire items and other upgrades by running missions. Each mission takes time and over time the missions get more difficult. Eventually time runs out and you must do the final mission.

Rating

Overall I give the game a solid A. It doesn't have the glitz of the major title but the voice acting is good and the comic style is solid. The game is clean, fun, and cheap. It doesn't have the depth of X-COM but it has plenty of offer at a fraction of the price. Also, if you bored with X-COM, it can inject new life into the genre.