The Invisible Inc. agency fights against the all-powerful corporations that dominate the futuristic world of gaming. On the ground, the agents are accompanied by the artificial intelligence Incognita, which helps them in particular in their hacking operations. But let's quickly go over the details of the story because the latest production from Klei Entertainment shines above all in its gameplay. It must still be recognized that the studio did not do things by halves, since the modest selling price is absolutely not synonymous with discount coating. Introductory cinematic worthy of a cartoon, dubbed dialogues, very successful artistic direction, high-tech spy atmosphere, scenario that holds up and very clean graphics are indeed there. But it is indeed the game mechanics themselves that make Invisible Inc. a must for anyone who enjoys stealth games. First of all, the fact of playing on a turn-by-turn basis is a pleasant change from the routine. Admittedly, the recent XCOMs have restored the taste of turn-based play to many players, but this series relies more on strategy than on infiltration strictly speaking. Here, on the contrary, the use of force is discouraged. In an emergency you can always fire a shot, but it is better to use the default neutralization device (a kind of contact taser), much more discreet and effective enough to knock enemies out for three turns. Far from being a simple gimmick, turn-based allows for some interesting tactics. Thus, when we are spotted and we have action points left to spend, it is advisable to take refuge behind a wall, near a door, and to ambush the alerted guard. When his turn to play comes, he will naturally walk through the door that leads to you, and will then be greeted by a good taser. The game giving us simultaneous control of several characters, it is also possible to get out of certain delicate situations by alternating the handling of the different agents. Nothing obliges us indeed to spend all the action points of a character before zapping on another.
PAWNS OR SPIES?
Take a look behind a door or a corner, unlock access after having collected the corresponding security cards, hack cameras so that they become our allies rather than our enemies, open safes, deactivate alarms or even taking control of the security drones are all actions that are available to us to evolve serenely in the levels. The equipment of the agents (weapons and various devices) as well as that of the artificial intelligence (with the help of different programs) also participate in the enrichment of the overall strategy. But the developers didn't just offer players a wide range of tools, they fine-tuned the game's balance to the extreme. So much so that if you die often, you don't plague on the other hand, never against the game. Because any failure is necessarily due to clumsiness or excessive haste on our part. In addition, the difficulty also originates in gameplay choices that increase the realism of situations. Thus, an alerted guard will not stupidly resume his initial patrol after some time. On the contrary, it will extend its surveillance zone and will actively search for intruders. Worse still, any lack of discretion on the part of the players also increases the overall level of security of the places which, to top it off, also increases naturally over the rounds. In other words, the more time passes and/or the more mistakes the player makes, the more the guards are active, numerous and the more the various devices present in the level are difficult to hack. It is still necessary to relativize the "hardcore" aspect of the game, because the developers had the good idea to leave the players free to finely configure the course of the games.
Introductory cinematic worthy of a cartoon, dubbed dialogues, very successful artistic direction, high-tech spy atmosphere, scenario that holds up and very clean graphics are indeed there. But it is indeed the game mechanics themselves that make Invisible Inc. a must for anyone who enjoys stealth games.
Number of authorized rewinds, density of guards, duration of knockouts, multiplier of credits, display or not of dangerous zones, number of pieces per level and many other subtleties still await you. Sets of predefined settings are available (beginner, experienced, expert, expert plus) as well as some variations of the rules (endless mode, "Time Attack" mode where each round must be completed in two minutes…), all of which encourage us to restart the campaign several times. Quite short, the latter really deserves to be covered again and again. On the one hand, the accumulated experience makes it possible to unlock additional agents, on the other hand the random generation of levels ensures unceasingly renewed pleasure. Counterpart of this attractive feature: the levels sometimes lack a bit of personality and the objectives hardly vary. A more mixed approach (randomly generated levels alternating with more original and specific levels) might have been preferable. But we're looking for the little beast here, because Invisible Inc. doesn't need to be perfect (which it almost is) to be exciting (which it totally is). Must try!
