To be honest I had a really hard time getting into this game, but I really thought I would like it. It is a simple pipe puzzle game where you rotate the pipes to let the virus spread to different computer system. It had a normal progression of puzzle games, it slowly adds different features to the game as you play each level. I really enjoyed the pipe part of the puzzles trying to figure out how get the pipes to function properly but this was only about 50% of the game. I started off getting "gold" status in all the levels and that quickly fell away as things got harder and harder.

So the other 50% of the game is more of the pipe stuff but it is stuck by timing elements. I have never been great at timing games and at times it just seems to frustrate me. This because it almost feels like the game is being repetitive just for the sake of being repetitive. Some of the levels just were maddening... taking probably 100 tries to complete it, let alone get a gold rating on the level. The other issue is a bunch of the achievements are based on multiplayer aspects to the game, which means you need to find a friend to play though it with you. This is a bit unappealing in a puzzle game in my opinion.

Overall the theme and character of the game is a bit quirky which is pretty nice. It does have a bit of a dark vibe to it all, but it is a humor based, quirky dark vibe. I would only recommend this to someone who loves puzzle games and twitch/timing based games. I didn't find any bugs or anything, I just couldn't get into it. It is still highly possible my state of mind played into it, but I can't recommend this in general so I would give it a 2/5.

This has to be one of my more recent obsessions... I really love this game. It is a mixture of tower defense and a hex based placement puzzle. The tower defense is based on the hex tiles so there are 6 different lanes to defend your ship against as you transport cargo from one planet to another. I am almost done with making this a perfect game (completing all of the achievements) and I still find it highly enjoyable. This is a more flushed out game then the first one, it seems to fill all the issues I had with the first one.

From the quirky characters that are back from the first game Space Run to the new characters, the voice acting and atmosphere of the game is quite enjoyable. I really enjoy the simple story here as it adds a bit of flavor and humor to the game, but don't be expecting Star Wars level story here it is a bit lack luster. The controls are fine, do I think they could use some improvements, yes. First off the hotkeys work fine, but "releasing" the selection is a bit of an issue. I really want to just hit esc (which brings up the in game menu... if I had a penny...) or something similar but I haven't found that through my gameplay to be there. I also got to the point where some of the gameplay got too repetitive, the balance wasn't quite there. I did find a bug in the quests however, I don't think I should have been given this quest as I didn't have the planet unlocked yet:

To continue on, I think they added wonderful multiplayer features that really add to the game in my opinion. Some feel as though it was simply an add on, but I think it was a deliberate design decision. It allows asynchronous and hands free multiplayer play which I think is ideal for a puzzle/tower defense type of game through a contract based system in which you contracts are posted publicly to everyone on the server. It also allows for built in longevity in the way it was designed as new players play through they can always find others contracts out. Essentially eliminating the need for someone else to be on at the same exact time to play together.

The progression system is fair but it essentially ends at 75% of the game. This means you aren't unlocking any new components for your ship for the last 25% of the game. I think this is why I felt it started to get grindy and repetitive. I do have to point out one more thing, I did have some performance issues at times. The framerate would drop sometimes and just make the game feel sluggish. Overall, like I said I love this game, but I think I love it because it's core concept is sooo good even though the implementation is not quite there yet. Don't get me wrong it is still better than it's successor, but there is still more work to be done before I say it is flawless. I give it a 4/5 because I do really enjoy the concept and the core gameplay is really entertaining!

Wow... this game is really fun. There is so much to say... where to begin. So, Invisible Inc. is very much in the vain of XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within. It is very tactical and strategic in your decisions. You really have to think everything through in order to proceed through the game. The game does a really good job at building tension and making your choices matter in as far as which agents live/die/succeed/fail.

You control a team of agents that are part of a shadow organization that are trying to take down the corporations that have greedily taken over the world. The game starts off by a break in of the shadow organization by the corporations, and your hacking AI pal is taken mobile. This sets up the plot where the AI needs to be recharged after 72 hours (3 days). Through out this in game time you build your team back up to its former glory for a final raid. This has you breaking into detention facilities, stealing vault keys, and even enhancing your agents with cyborg type of modifications.

The game plays very well, it is not too hand holdy and lets you make some mistakes. On the beginner level of difficulty it allows you to rewind, which is great for starting to understand how all the mechanics work without a huge long multilevel tutorial, don't get me wrong there is a very basic tutorial at the start but it doesn't prepare you like a whole first play-through does. It is also one of those games that unlocks things as you play through it much like a roguelike, think how you unlock different characters in Binding of Issac. I feel as though this is one of those games that I can just sink a ton of hours into it if I am not careful. To add to this the game doesn't take itself too seriously and has a good sense of humor about it.

So... what are the cons to the game? Well, I feel as though there a bunch of small little things that end up hurting the gameplay enough to knock it down a bit. The first thing is the controls and UI, most of the time they are fine but on occasion I found them clumsy. For instance, in the previous image/video I was tabbing through my agents and thought I had Decker selected. But in reality I had Dr. Xu selected and made a huge mistake of a move that I ended up rewinding. The other thing that normally doesn't get me is video game logic. In the following video, you can see Decker taking out a guard right in front of another guard. The second guard then gets alerted and dumbly follows suit in the next turn. First off the first guard should have seen a guy right next to him and not been taken down that easily, and then the second shouldn't have just followed blindly through the door on the next turn. There are of ton of other instances of this fuzzy game logic, from doors magically opening to terrible patrol patterns that put a guard literally in a corner. But this may have been more of the level of difficulty I was playing at but it still bugged me enough to mention it here.

In conclusion, I absolutely love this game. It is right up my alley, the stealth is in a way I can digest it and process it. The game really feels like a spiritual successor of sorts to XCOM. I know it is exactly what they were going for, however, the bunch of mini issues brings this down to a 4/5 in my opinion. If I were to change my scale I would even put it up there at a 9/10 or 4.5/5, it is a great game and I highly recommend it to anyone that likes turn based strategy games.

I am looking forward to playing more of this in the future. But if you want to check it out a bit for yourself, I have my commentary free play through (once I get around to getting them all uploaded and published) up on Youtube:

So this is a fairly simple puzzle game, it has a great balance of trying to push you to make a decision and letting you take your time to figure it out. To me if fits the bill as a good basic puzzle game. The puzzles have been seen time and time again, but what freshens up this game is the turn based vs. real time mechanics. A good portion of puzzle are based around the interplay between turn based and real time mechanics. I found it controlled great, even though I did have some issues with the UI and menu selection. WHY CAN'T I JUST CLICK WITH MY MOUSE!?!? Bah... I think this might be because it might be a port from another gaming system.

The game is split into levels and each level has a few different sections that builds on the previous levels puzzles and knowledge, which really helps ramp up the difficulty as you gain skills in the game. It ranks you as you complete levels in time, turns, scientists saved, and secrets found. I think this for me would be way to hard to complete all the achievements, as one of them is to complete the game without taking damage. I would just run into something and get so frustrated. Anyways, the art style is fun and interesting. Overall, it performs good and I would recommend this only to people who really like puzzle games. It went into the common class of games at a 3/5.