Invisible, Inc. Console Edition Review

Invisible, Inc Review Screenshot 1

Invisible, Inc. Console Edition, the stealthy cell shaded spy adventure from Klei Entertainment, starts with an explosive opening scene. The agency your team of agents work for is under ambush. Mother, the silver-haired head of Invisible Inc, escapes with an artificial intelligence called Incognita. You regather your very limited forces to plan for a full offensive. You can gain resources by breaking in various agencies buildings or you can choose to save agents lost in the attack to add to your team. Your mission, is to infiltrate various facilities with spy gadgets at your disposal and the aid of a loyal secret intelligence hacker, Monst3r. Also to assist you are the omnipresent capabilities of the Incognita sentient program. Time is not on your side as you only have 72 hours to regain your agencies standing again.

This limited time frame can make the learning curve a little steep but it’s nothing you can’t overcome. Traveling to each destination takes valuable time off the clock until you are rediscovered by your assailants. The longer your agents stay in an enemy complex the more aware of your presence the security becomes. As a result, guards will become more assertive in their presence and will attempt to hunt you down. Additional enemy types and firewall security Daemon viruses become more prominent in an effort to slow you down. The base mechanics and the 90 degree 3D game design is reminiscent of X-com. With each master of espionage having limited action points for movement, certain interactions and abilities. That’s where the similarities end, as Invisibles Inc is definitely a new IP in it’s own right. One distinct difference is that you never miss your target with either melee or ranged attacks. Which avoids RNG disappointment as your trained soldier misses at point-blank range.

Invisible, Inc Review Screenshot 2

Your spy team is equipped with gadgets and augments that increase your efficiency. It’s mainly cover to cover using keyholes in doors to check rooms for surveillance before entering. Always remember to close doors behind you as this can block line of sight and lose pursuers.You can stun patroling guard but you should avoid it whenever possible. The problem is that if a stunned guard wakes they become alert going on the prowl. This can create mission compromising situations for your agents. You can prevent this by keeping one of your team over the guard keeping him pinned halting his recovery. As good as this is, it’s only a temporary fix that requires one of your spies to stay over the body. Since you need to keep your agents on the move it’s apparent how this is counter productive to the mission. If you want you can change the campaign settings so enemies have 99 turn knock outs and be full agro. However, for those who want the default campaign, simply remember you’re a spy and you’re supposed to sneak in and out of places unnoticed.

To help you get around the security one of the tools at your disposal is the Incognita sentient program that can hack into security devices. You can hack surveillance cameras to reveal some parts of a room and of course, turning it off. Safes, main frames, power for the laser grid defences and even hacking robots and drones. Cameras become a top priority as does attacking mainframes that reveal level maps hackable devices. To stay ahead of the game or just to keep up at times, you need to loot safes for cash. You can also pickpocket unsuspecting guards for extra cash and key cards that grant access through locked doors. The more cash you can acquire the more you can boost your abilities and arsenal. Although Monst3r provides the occasional power up between missions the main place you will get equipment is from are the Nano Fabricators. You can get various weapons such as, tranquilizer darts, stun batons and even armour-piercing guns that have limited ammo but can kill enemies so they don’t wake and become a problem. You can also buy augments to boost each character’s passive abilities, though be warned, once implemented they become permanent and can’t be removed or replaced.

There are various different missions, though they all mainly involve go in, hack, get the loot and buy new items and upgrades. The primary mission is always go to a designated room to get something of value and get out. There are variants as to how different agencies beef up their security as the security level increases. You go in completely blind and have to make it up as you go along. I would have liked perhaps a bit more intel on the facilities before I sent a team to infiltrate them so I could plan accordingly.

Invisible, Inc Review Screenshot 3

Various different campaign options are available upon initiating a new game. You can have it as challenging as you like. You can even extend the 72hr campaign default to 120 hours or even endless. I personally thought 120hr felt like the right length for amin campaign. Though, I can understand people wanting the quick replay with the various different modes and equipment available. The scaling between enemies and my own super spies capabilities could be a bit off.If you make a mistake don’t worry though as you can use the rewind option that takes you back a two turns.

It’s clear that Invisible, Inc. Console Edition is designed to be played and beaten or lost repeatedly from the persistent skill meters that transfer over to the next play through. Even though the missions lack variety in the mission objective, the challenge always varies depending on the enemy types and security set up. The equipment that you accrue changes the way you play by giving you a different variety of options with each replay. The procedural generated levels can seem to be a bit illogical at times but nothing that makes it mission impossible. It would have been nice to have had a multiplayer but I won’t hold that against the game. Ultimately, Invisible, Inc. Console Edition is as challenging as you want it to be.

Rating 8

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

Subscribe to our mailing list

Get the latest game reviews, news, features, and more straight to your inbox