amazon Serial Cleaner reviews
The stealth category, or we still call it surreptitious, has a lot of modern game monuments. But Serial Cleaner does not go that route. Developers choose a very specific way for the game, with its distinctive graphics and 2D top-down gameplay. The main character of the game is Bob, doing a “cleaning up of the field” job for a friend in the mafia gang nicknamed Cleaner. Through this connection, Bob is given a mysterious assassin named Echo Killer who is often assigned the task of “cleaning up”. But as time goes on, things get even more complicated until the unexpected happens.
Serial Cleaner’s graphics use mostly brown, yellow, and cream colors, which match the theme of the game. It carries a lot of cartoon drawings in the 70s, perhaps to follow the plot of the game. I personally do not feel the need to use these colors, it makes the eyes look not so tender. But that seems to be the purpose of the design, to make it more difficult for people to monitor progress on the screen. On the other hand, Serial Cleaner uses a modern top-down view. It helps you cover the game overall, and makes decisions that match the game’s stealth mode.
At first, the content idea in Serial Cleaner surprised me a little. Probably because I often see this kind of story in the movie. It’s not that great, but it does a pretty good job of bringing the characters’s backgrounds and well-designed screens. Every time after completing “work”, the character returned home with his mother to prepare for the next mission. Through the information that you can “see” in newspapers, radio and television, players will gradually understand the story of the main character and why Bob does this job.
With the stealth mode, the Serial Cleaner gameplay is almost the same as hide and seek with every new level of play that adds new elements. The player’s task is to collect “steel evidence,” clean bloodstains and “fix” the bodies to certain areas of the map. Of course not everything just stops there. You also have to avoid police or security, take shortcuts and play “cheat” to make way for “work”. Later on, this gameplay requires high accuracy and the level of difficulty increases, is wider and more vulnerable.
Although speaking is quite simple, but experience brings a different feeling. Serial Cleaner has “team” A.I. quality uneven. They can very quickly give up finding the character of the player upon discovery, to catch up with Bob endlessly. On the other hand, each level has a number of presets, changing every time the main character is captured by the enemy and playing again. This means that in the next turn, you may encounter a different level than you did before. The position of some things that the task requires to solve will change, only the enemy is still “remain old”.
It is this element that makes the game experience unbearable after you get too caught up. Not to mention, if you like a challenge or a certain level of play, you can revise some elements of that level. For example, “delete” all the places can hide in the game, or experience the two colors in black and white. Developer is also quite delicate when hiding some items collected in the game. If found, players can unlock Bob’s outfits and some special non-plot related scenes, inspired by such famous 70’s movies as Taxi Driver or Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
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Serial Cleaner (Indie) – PS4 [Digital Code]: Buy it now
Serial Cleaner [Online Game Code]: Buy it now
Actually, the default difficulty of the game is enough to cause difficulties for players. Later, the map is also larger and more accurate. Every time you get caught up near the end of the game is a “never-ending pain” that you easily give up. Players are forced to play from the beginning of the screen, starting everything from scratch, losing all of their effort from the beginning. These “pains” are quite permanent in the Serial Cleaner experience. You will need a lot of patience to be able to complete the entire game.
Music in the Serial Cleaner is one of the most interesting aspects of the game. The soundtrack of the game almost all are gentle jazz or rock music rhythmic strength. I do not often listen to music but the tone of the music in the game sounds very different. It feels old enough not to bring modern music of today. So I guess the Serial Cleaner also uses 70s for the soundtrack. Just a pity, the game has a lot of dialogue in and between games. All are only text, not dubbing.
Last, Serial Cleaner is a very stealth game titles. Despite the high difficulty level and the gameplay is a repetitive but very interesting, causing the players many times feel “crazy”. Not to mention, the graphics and soundtrack are impressive, that is likely to be your experience of the game experience.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Core Gameplay
At its heart, ‘Serial Cleaner’ involves stealth with some strategic puzzle aspects: cleaning crime scenes without getting caught in the police’s sight. Players shoot the role of a cleaner who goes into crime scenes with the intent of getting rid of all traces of the crime, including bodies and some blood stains.
The gameplay covers acting on planned moves, stealthy tactics, and puzzle-solving. In each level, different crime scenes, unique goals, and constraints are placed on the player, whereby he must pass through danger.
Levels and Objectives
The game consists of various levels. Each of which has a unique crime scene with its own set of objectives. Following are some objectives for the players:
Removing Bodies: To avoid any discovery by the police, players must remove bodies.
Cleaning Bloodstains: Bloodstains must be chloride to eliminate evidence for the crime.
Collecting Evidence: Other forms of evidence, weapons, or documents may need to be collected and discarded.
Each level poses a different context and challenge, dealing with different layouts, obstacles, and police patrols. Therefore, players must carefully plan when to act and when not to in a stealth fashion.
Stealth Mechanics
Stealth is the heart and soul of “Serial Cleaner”. The mechanics are based on avoiding sight or distaste from police officers and inhabiting characters in the environment. The different methods utilized to avoid detection are:
Hiding in the Shadows: Players duck into shadows or behind objects to stay out of sight from patrolling authorities.
Distract: Distractor abilities involving noise or moving things attract the police officer’s attention.
Timing: Players time their movements to avoid being seen.
The stealth remecahics have been built to be intuitive but difficult. For players to successfully complete the level objectives, they have to juggle time efficiency and exercising caution in not being spotted.
Controls and Interface
Controls in ‘Serial Cleaner’ are simple and easy to grasp. They consist of basic keyboard controls or gamepad input to move, interact with objects, or execute an action on the game interface. The interface highlights the objectives clearly, the position of the character, and police patrols.
These controls are very responsive, giving players the precision to traverse through the environment and perform actions. Interface design keeps the player in focus with gameplay and provides important information while not cluttering the screen.
Difficulties and Challenges
“Serial Cleaner” is quite flexible with respect to its difficulty settings; basically, users are free to choose whatever type of challenge suits them best or want to try it all. The way the game’s difficulty plays out is:
Police AI: Higher difficulty levels will be associated with a really vigilant and challenging patrol. On easy, cops can be oblivious to their duties, and can later on be classified as deadbeats.
To meet the harder requirements set forth by such objectives, higher forms of already increasing task numbers tend to add that complexity. Time Limits: Some levels may be rendered even more challenging by the introduction of time limits.
The levels of the game’s difficulty were fine-tuned to challenge players without much frustration. It can be programmed, thanks to the skill and experience of the player, at his level of ability or achievement so that it can thus be always played and enjoyed.
Graphics and Art Styles
Artistic Contextualization
“Serial Cleaner” provides art true to the retro feel in 2 the form, really able to translate the game’s time and setting into such limited art style-representing different aspects of the 1970s: Stylized Graphics: This game uses a top-down stylized and retro-styled graphical technique. Graphics reflect so much of the color and detail-and better yet, the moments from the 1970s.
The crime scene is very detailed in its design, with its large scope of objects and surroundings making it feel truly immersive: locations. Houses, warehouses, offices, even whole buildings, range among the different kinds of environments.
Character Design: The character designs are expressive and developed into thematic retro games. The cleaner and the policemen, as well as a few other characters, are depicted using highly distinctive visual approaches that add to the overall atmosphere.
The visual scheme of “Serial Cleaner” makes it unique-the direct flavor it adds to the game and brings up an engaging scenario for the audience. Retro mania, at once, lends even more charm and character to the game itself, making it quickly distinguishable from within the stealth genre.
Performance and Optimization
But overall, the performance in “Serial Cleaner” is quite smooth, with some optimizations available on most consoles, including PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It takes you through great graphical in richness by a high-resolution environment and very well animated.
Generally, the game plays great on almost every system with very few frame rate or graphical glitches. Freedom from most technical disruptions gives players a seamless and immersive experience.
Sound and Music
Soundtrack
“Serial Cleaner” is filled with some retro-inspired titles, choirs, or instrumental tracks that highlight the essence of setting the game back in the 1970s. The highlights of the exact fit and upbeat tunes for the game tone would pack in the overall feel and immersion.
The soundtrack adds to the experience of playing the game making it dynamic and interesting to listen. The music will fit with the action in the game and will keep up with the mood throughout the levels.
Sound Effects And Voice Acting
Sound effects contribute significantly to “Serial Cleaner.” Each action, like cleaning blood or moving objects, has its unique sound effect. These great sound effects lend some credibility and immersion to the game.
The voice acting is kept to a minimum, with most dialogue being represented textually. The absence of voice acting may restrict the narrative experience, but it does little to detract from the overall gameplay.
Story And Narrative
Plot And Setting
Taking place during the 1970s, “Serial Cleaner” follows the life of a cleaner hired to sanitize crime scenes and hide evidence. The story is revealed through a series of levels, in-game events, and cut scenes, giving context to gameplay and setting.
The story is fairly minimal, with the main focus on gameplay and objectives. The narrative virtues mainly serve to furnish some background and context for crime scenes which, chiefly, are about stealth and puzzle mechanics.
Character Development
The game gives players a range of characters to choose from-a cleaner and a handful of police officers. Although not much character development takes place, they nevertheless create a deeper universe for the game and give context for its gameplay.
The character development is contained in dialogue type texts and background information, allowing players to learn about the world and its inhabitants. The gameplay remains the focus; the narrative exists mostly as an accessory.
Replayability
Levels And Challenges
Replayability is what “Serial Cleaner” is all about. An array of levels are offered, each with its distinctly unique crime scene and set of objectives. Players can go back to the levels for scoring, achievement completion, or simply working through various approaches.
Different difficulty levels and various objectives create perfect opportunities for replayability. Players can try new approaches and tactics to get the best results to discover new strategies.
Achievements And Unlockables
The game is packed with a fair number of achievements and unlockables, thereby enhancing replayability. Players can unlock achievements by accomplishing certain objectives, or through excellence in levels. Unlockables further encourage the player to replay the game by providing them with some nice new goodies, perhaps equipment or skins.
The achievements and unlockables serve to immerse the player into the experience, whereby they wish to try out the game once again, looking into different sides of the gameplay.
Critique and Conclusion
Strengths
Unique Stealth Mechanics: The marriage between stealth and puzzle creates a one-of-a-kind and engaging experience. The need to avoid being caught while carrying out the cleaning of crime scenes presents a challenge that goes a step further than your ordinary gameplay.
Retro Aesthetic: The visual and audiovisual retro treatment is part of its appeal and atmosphere. The 1970s setting is well realized, giving the game a personality.
Challenging Gameplay: With different complexity levels and diverse objectives in play, the game provides a truly rewarding and challenging experience. Stealth and strategy combined keep the player engaged and improve the overall experience.
Well-Designed Levels: The levels are meticulously planned, each with varying environments and obstacles captured during gameplay. The variety of circumstances and objectives add some depth to the game.
Weaknesses
Minimal Narrative Depth: Compared to other narrative-driven games, the story and character development are almost nil. It is more about enjoying the game and hardly anything about the world and its characters.
Repetitive Gameplay: While the core mechanics are engaging, in the long run, the gameplay tends to become repetitious. Objectives and tasks might feel similar across different levels and spoil the fun over time.
Limited Voice Acting: Not every player sees the absence of voice acting as a negative for the narrative experience. On the other hand, the text-only dialogue puts a dent in immersion and emotionality.
Conclusion
Serial Cleaner is a unique and elaborate stealth puzzle game combining different gameplay mechanics and retro aesthetics. Stealth mechanics, challenging gameplay, and charming visual artistry characterize the game as the pride of this genre.
Though there are issues concerning a thin narrative and some repetitive gameplay, there are infinite thumbs-up for the strengths. In other words, Serial Cleaner is a good and interesting game for anyone into stealth and puzzles with a nice amount of replayability and room for experimentation.
In summary, Serial Cleaner is a good blend of fun and excitement; with a fresh and unique experience to offer, it requires a place in every gamer’s library.