A-Z backlog challenge- Invisible Inc.
I'm a big fan of turn-based tactics games. I loved Final fantasy tactics, Jagged Alliance 2, XCom and Fallout tactics back in the day and it's good to see the genre having a revival. Invisible Inc. by Klei entertainment , continues in the tradition of fine turn- based games and adds a unique twist.
In all those games the focus was on gaining xp, better items and becoming stronger through killing enemies. In Invisible inc. you are making money, getting better items and upgrading your squad through hacking and stealing but for the most part you are looking to using stealth, smarts and avoiding confrontation where possible.
In the story campaign, you control agents who are on the run from a mega corporation that destroyed their base of operations. You have three days to try to strengthen the squad to where you have a fighting chance in the final mission where you seek to destroy the network of the corporation that is after you. The story is told using colourful, stylised graphics which really makes you feel part of the action of an anime series.
You have to choose between missions, targeting different corporations around the world. It is always an interesting decision which mission to take as there are many different ways to improve your squad. You can hit a detention facility, to try to gain another squad member or retrieve a civilian for profit. Other facilities include nano fabricators where you can get better items and cybernetics labs where you can get implants.
In the randomly generated missions, you move from room to room, unlocking doors, hacking cameras, power supplies and later even drones. You need to avoid or subdue guards who range from ordinary security guards to elite paramilitary style soldiers with elite gear such as protective vests (which require armor piercing weapons), stun grenades and portable sensors to detect you even in the best hiding spots. You might even run into a mech or two. During mission there is an alarm level which determines how hard things are. It starts at level 0. At level, 1 extra cameras come online. At two the security level goes up on all the things you need to hack so it requires more power. At level 3 and 4 an extra normal guard teleports in and at 5 and 6 extra elite guards. So you need to decide between whether you want to prioritse speed in finishing your objective or if you feel you can spend longer exploring every room and opening every safe.
The beginner difficulty is a good place to learn the mechanics as you get a few rewinds which let you go back in time to the beginning of the previous turn so you don't have to restart when things don't go as you expected them to. There are also less guards and they stay knocked out for an extra turn after you KO them using a stun weapon. Once you move on to normal level things get crazy pretty quickly and missions can go from going well to disaster in seconds.
It's extremely satisfying when you somehow manage to survive from what looks like an impossible situation using all the tools at your disposal and return safely to base with your loot and some money for further items and upgrades.
The decision of what to spend your money is also a very difficult one. Sometimes you will get free augments or find an item in a locker or just randomly in a safe but generally you need to spend your hard stolen money. You can get better melee and ranged weapons, which can be stun or lethal, lockpicks, emp grenades, cloaking devices and paralysing injections, which can all be more or less useful depending on the agents you have and the mission ahead of you. Augments can also aid in either further specialising your agent or making them a jack-of-all-trades.
Helping you in your mission is an AI which you can also upgrade. "She" requires power, which can be gained through plugging into consoles throughout the stages, as well as through some programs, augments and deployable items you may have. Most of your hacking will be done through her although again it is possible to bypass some security measures using lockpicks, emp abilities, weapons and other hacking augments and items. These are all however rather expensive and hard to find and you often need to prioritise other items or upgrades. She starts with 2 programs. In your first game the one gives you 1 power per turn and the other allows you to bypass 1 security level for the cost of 2 power. Later you can buy programs that for example give you control of drones for longer, move enemy programs off terminals or cameras you are trying to access or even emit a noise in a target location to distract guards from your current location. Power and item management in missions is as important as purchasing and upgrade decisions. Adding to the dilemmas is the fact that some items have limited uses, despite their high price. You also have tough tactical decisions such as whether to split your team up to cover ground faster, or to stick together to back each other up. As well as the safes to find and unlock you also need to decide whether to risk stealing items and credits the guards carry themselves. It's a good implementation of a push-your-luck mechanic.
Each agent has 4 attributes you can improve: Strength, which allows you to carry more items and drag guards faster; Speed, which gives you more action points allowing you to move further per turn; Anarchy, which allows you to steal items from cards you haven't knocked out; and Hacking, which gains you more power from consoles. Levelling up these abilities also allows you to use better items and augment related to them. Speed upgrades allow you to use movement related items, hacking ones to do with power generation, anarchy ones to do with hacking and strength access to better weapons. Levelling attributes also uses credits so you need to decide whether it is best to improve these or save money to buy items in missions or between missions. After a successful or unsuccessful campaign you gain XP which goes towards unlocking new agents and programs.
I have only finished the campaign on beginner level and played a few endless campaigns where you just try to survive for as long as you can. Although the story campaign only takes a few hours, there is a lot of replayability due to the different ways you are going to approach the mission based on which agents you start off with as each has different starting attributes, items and augments.You can for example combo an agent who can do extra attacks per turn with one who starts with the parlaysing agent to make confrontations slightly less hazardous. Or you could go with a team with cloaking devices, holograms and high movement to do your best to never be detected by anyone. Another option would be to focus on characters best at hacking consoles and drones and with access to emp abilities or items and do as many missions against corporations which use these more often than human guards.
The items, programs and augments you purchase or steal in each campaign are also going to influence playstyle. There are certainly items better suited to each agent but when money and items are hard to come across you often have to make do with whatever you get. That, along with how quickly things can go from comfortable to panic-stations, gives the game the same feeling and addictiveness as FTL, which was one of my favourite games I played last year. This is a game I can see myself spending many more hours on and probably one I won't be uninstalling for many years.
Release year: 2015
Rating: 82
Normal Steam price: $19.99
Best Sale price: $5.99
In all those games the focus was on gaining xp, better items and becoming stronger through killing enemies. In Invisible inc. you are making money, getting better items and upgrading your squad through hacking and stealing but for the most part you are looking to using stealth, smarts and avoiding confrontation where possible.
In the story campaign, you control agents who are on the run from a mega corporation that destroyed their base of operations. You have three days to try to strengthen the squad to where you have a fighting chance in the final mission where you seek to destroy the network of the corporation that is after you. The story is told using colourful, stylised graphics which really makes you feel part of the action of an anime series.
In the randomly generated missions, you move from room to room, unlocking doors, hacking cameras, power supplies and later even drones. You need to avoid or subdue guards who range from ordinary security guards to elite paramilitary style soldiers with elite gear such as protective vests (which require armor piercing weapons), stun grenades and portable sensors to detect you even in the best hiding spots. You might even run into a mech or two. During mission there is an alarm level which determines how hard things are. It starts at level 0. At level, 1 extra cameras come online. At two the security level goes up on all the things you need to hack so it requires more power. At level 3 and 4 an extra normal guard teleports in and at 5 and 6 extra elite guards. So you need to decide between whether you want to prioritse speed in finishing your objective or if you feel you can spend longer exploring every room and opening every safe.
The beginner difficulty is a good place to learn the mechanics as you get a few rewinds which let you go back in time to the beginning of the previous turn so you don't have to restart when things don't go as you expected them to. There are also less guards and they stay knocked out for an extra turn after you KO them using a stun weapon. Once you move on to normal level things get crazy pretty quickly and missions can go from going well to disaster in seconds.
It's extremely satisfying when you somehow manage to survive from what looks like an impossible situation using all the tools at your disposal and return safely to base with your loot and some money for further items and upgrades.
Each agent has 4 attributes you can improve: Strength, which allows you to carry more items and drag guards faster; Speed, which gives you more action points allowing you to move further per turn; Anarchy, which allows you to steal items from cards you haven't knocked out; and Hacking, which gains you more power from consoles. Levelling up these abilities also allows you to use better items and augment related to them. Speed upgrades allow you to use movement related items, hacking ones to do with power generation, anarchy ones to do with hacking and strength access to better weapons. Levelling attributes also uses credits so you need to decide whether it is best to improve these or save money to buy items in missions or between missions. After a successful or unsuccessful campaign you gain XP which goes towards unlocking new agents and programs.
I have only finished the campaign on beginner level and played a few endless campaigns where you just try to survive for as long as you can. Although the story campaign only takes a few hours, there is a lot of replayability due to the different ways you are going to approach the mission based on which agents you start off with as each has different starting attributes, items and augments.You can for example combo an agent who can do extra attacks per turn with one who starts with the parlaysing agent to make confrontations slightly less hazardous. Or you could go with a team with cloaking devices, holograms and high movement to do your best to never be detected by anyone. Another option would be to focus on characters best at hacking consoles and drones and with access to emp abilities or items and do as many missions against corporations which use these more often than human guards.
The items, programs and augments you purchase or steal in each campaign are also going to influence playstyle. There are certainly items better suited to each agent but when money and items are hard to come across you often have to make do with whatever you get. That, along with how quickly things can go from comfortable to panic-stations, gives the game the same feeling and addictiveness as FTL, which was one of my favourite games I played last year. This is a game I can see myself spending many more hours on and probably one I won't be uninstalling for many years.
Release year: 2015
Rating: 82
Normal Steam price: $19.99
Best Sale price: $5.99
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