PixlBit

Wherein I catalog and share the games that are catching my attention and piquing my interest in year 15 of the second millenium.

It's still only Early Access, but I think that this may wind up being one of my favorite stealth games ever.  Yes, an isometric, turn based, small developer game is up there with Thief 2 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Not only that, it may be one of the best espionage games I've ever played, the one I've been waiting for someone to make. Klei Entertainment has already shown a knack for making stealth work terrifically in planar perspectives with the side scrolling Mark of the Ninja, and doing it with style and intelligence.

You control a team of 2 agents and a remote hacker as you pull off capers in randomly generated missions across the globe. The main goal of each mission is to locate and exit through an elevator that is randomly placed in each mission, while completing other objectives along the way. The number of actions you can take each turn depends on a point pool and the point cost of various actions. You have to deal with patrolling guards, various forms of automated surveillance, ability cooldowns, and the aforementioned alarm counter (which brings in more and more capable guards,raises the amount of points needed to hack things, etc.). And perma death. Yes, this game has roguelike features like many other small studio games these days. But it makes the game all the more intense and your decisions have more weight.

You are given a considerable amount of abilities with which to carry out successful operations: You can hide behind objects, peak through doors, temporarily subdue or kill guards with various weapons, create distractions, set up ambushes; you can use hacking to turn off cameras, set turrets to attack your opposition, crack open electronic safes, locate other terminals; you can find money on stages that let you either upgrade your characters' skills at the end of missions or buy new tools (weapons, hacking programs, healing items, etc.).

Nearly every element in the game comes with a system of risk and reward built into it. Do you use your cash to upgrade skills or to buy equipment that may swing things in your favor?  Do you push your luck and keep exploring the floor under increasingly tight security or get out while the getting is good? Do you leave guards alone and rely on smart movement and hiding to go unseen as they go along their consistent routes, or do you knock them out to make it easier in the short term while chancing that they may wake up suspicious and go on an unpredictable patrol route? If one of your agents gets cornered or knocked out, do you risk going to help them or do you get out with your one agent and accept the loss of another? This is a tightly constructed game, a real gamer/s/game designer's game.

The art style is clean, colorful, slick and attractive. I find it really appealing and it somehow conveys the overall polish and quality of the game, even in its Early Access state.  The music is what probably what you imagine when you think 'espionage' or 'spies.' It's conventional, but it works to set the tone. 

There is as much tension in this game as there is the from the best scenes in the Mission: Impossible series of films and TV. You will find yourself in the equivalent of the Langley scene in the first film, where Tom Cruise is trying to hack data before the guard returns, while keeping a bead of sweat from setting off the floor alarm sensors, while dangling from a cable. You won't be doing any hanging from the ceiling or climbing extremetly tall structures without a rope, but the tension is similar when you have patrolling guards on all sides and your stun gun and you don't have enough movement points to make it to safety before your cloaking device runs out.  This is a very tactical game, with permanent consequences on each run.

It if weren't for the fact that the game is not in official release state, it would be my pick for game of 2014. It's due out this year, and the competition is stiff as can be, but I have a feeling it will still be a contender, a David among Goliaths.