4/5. I love the first Intravenous - one of my favorite games. I highly recommend that game, and I highly recommend this one. For me, these two games are all about the visceral joy of sneaking around, stabbing, strangling, bludgeoning, and shooting "the bad guys." (I really am a peacenik in real life!) Doing it over and over again, tweaking my execution for each level. It's all about the game play, and the game play is great. I love going in guns blazing, and I also love sneaking around and doing things clean like. Both Intravenous games are fantastic. The new game adds some extra mechanics, which are mostly pretty cool. Combat feels a little grittier, with enemies sometimes getting back up after you shoot them. There are cool enhancements for the various guns. Etc. The story on this game is much worse than the first game, and the first games story was bad. I try to bypass the story and just get on with the game. I really wish the game didn't even have a story, and fewer cut scenes. The levels on this game feel less quality than the first game. But I still look forward to replaying them a lot. In some ways, the first game was less deep, but it somehow flows better (level design, less story, etc). All the same, I plan to replay both of these games many times (I already have replayed the first one more times than I can count; I would say the replay value on these is very high). This developer deserves more success. First game was 5/5, this one is 4/5. 4/5 is still very good.
You sneak in through the window, and creep up on the unsuspecting criminal sitting in a chair across the room. You knife him in the throat, and quickly rush to the light switch to kill the lights. But just then, a guard outside spotted you through the window! He is going to alert the others! Thinking quickly, you throw your knife through the window, killing the guard instantly. But now you have to hide his body, or else more thugs will be on alert. You go pick up the guard's body, and toss him in a dumpster. Hopefully no one notices the blood trail you left.... This game is a total blast. In many ways, it is reminiscent of Hotline Miami, but with much more in the way of stealth mechanics, and much more interesting enemy AI. It's also a game you can play many ways. My friend beat the game with a total run-and-gun style (on the hardest difficulty!); no attempt at stealth. I'm enjoying a very quiet, stealthy play style (knife and silenced pistol, no armor). You can prioritize taking out a ton of enemies, or you can simply sneak by many of them. You choose your equipment before each run. You can go in with full body armor and assault rifles, or you can go in with a knife and taser, and an EMP gun for dealing with video cameras. The equipment you carry heavily affects your stealthiness. The story is "meh." Hotline Miami has a cooler story and a much more artistically interesting "vibe." But this game has FANTASTIC game play, and I find it a MUCH superior game play experience to HLM. I enjoy playing the same levels over and over... sneaking around, taking out the baddies. It's a thrill. I don't play games for the story, I play to enjoy playing. This one is very compelling. I highly recommend it!
10/10. I LOVE this game. For me, this game hits a total sweet spot of awesomeness. It may seem odd, but I'm going to compare this game to Tetris, as a lot of the positive characteristics of this game are in common with Tetris. Like Tetris, you can very quickly get into this game. Within seconds, you are playing the game, and learning the game from experience. You don't need a manual (though you will probably want to do some reading after you get your hands dirty for awhile). Just get in there and play! This is a skill based game. So much of the reward of the game is in realizing that YOU have leveled up, and learned to overcome challenges that initially seemed impossible. It's all about the gameplay. There is something zen about the experience (something I got with Tetris, too). Just shooting at stuff and dodging all kinds of crazy attacks... it sucks you in. It's a game that doesn't require absurd committment. It's not a deep story or deep world. You can pick this up and play for 15 minutes and put it down. It's SUPER replayable, owing to the randomly generated levels and the huge variety of characters and level up abilities and weapons and so on. Aside from that, this game just rocks. Just as an example, the weapons FEEL GREAT. The guns have real weight and power to them. It's a joy blowing stuff up with explosives, or whacking monsters with melee weapons. You will feel like a boss wading through levels with your guns blazing. The game is also very comical, and absurd things happen all the time (crazy unintended consequences owing to all kinds of powerful weapons and powerful enemies. The game rewards experimentation and careful strategy. It's a joy to learn all the nuances of the game. Pit your skill and your knowledge against a very challenging game. It is a hard game, but I personally found it to be fun at every stage. I highly recommend this. One of my all time faves.
