HEIST

I saw this game at PAX Australia, tested it for a bit and instantly bought it at the stand. Fun, Challenging, Cool noir vibes and sh*t. Pretty gnarly.

Stealth sneak thief with beautiful noir graphic style. Checkpoints in hiding places help you try different plans when you get stuck. Lots of gadgets to help you and multiple ways to get the goal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sblu78Wywxg

Slow, boring, and with frustrating controls/physics/asset boundaries that make you go "oh wtf i told you to moveee/hide/do this/not that"

Indie devs, cosplaying as an evil corporation, implement checkpoints, the 3rd-rate save system meant for proprietary hardware, as a middle finger to players. With both hands, because if you leave mid-mission, either willfully or by accident, you'll have to restart from scratch next time. No way to simply continue. In fact, you'll have to browse manually through clunky menus just to retrieve the map you were playing on. If you can remember which one it was, that is. I respond in kind, with a shorter finger, pointed red and painted down. With both hands as well, because there is no quality of life whatsoever. No multi-slots. No comfort in the GUI. No smooth aiming. Nothing in-game to indicate where you or your objective are inside the maze, no map, no zoom out, no scrolling, no visibility at all. Nothing but bugs and the inevitability of Murphy's law.

This fun game.

This game is so hard to love, the ambiance is great, the gameplay however isn't that good, you can't pass certain points without asset, the checkpoint are weirdly place, the whole thing just feels clumsy Just get Mark of Ninja already

初見プレイを約5時間でクリア。 一応ステルスゲームとして成立はしてるが、 [h1]発見されて逃げ回ることが前提の死に覚えステルスゲー[/h1] [olist] [*]ゲーム自体は、屋敷とかに潜入してお宝を盗んで逃げるだけのシンプルなステルスゲーム。ストーリーは無し。マップは全部で7,8個程度か。 [*]ミッション目標以外のアイテム回収は皆無だし、マップ自体にギミックや仕掛けは何もない単純な作りのゲームなので、やり込み要素はほぼ皆無。 [*]明るい場所に居たら警備員が20m離れてても0.1秒で発見する超理不尽なステルスシステムな上に明るい場所だらけなので、隠密プレイは全く成立してない。 [*]なので、小刻みにセーブ(緑色の隠れ場所)しつつ、基本的に物陰に隠れながら移動して、発見されたら走って逃げ回る…の繰り返しをするだけのゲームになる。 [*]一応、コインを投げたり、ノイズ発生装置を仕掛けたり、ワイヤートラップで警備員を転がせたり出来るけど、過信はできない程度。 [*]セーブ場所は割とまばらに散在しているのが救い。 [*]ミッションが始まるとマップ確認ができないのが面倒。 [*]============= [*]類似ゲームを挙げるとすれば、Crookz - The Big Heist, The Marvellous Miss Take, volumeといったところか。評者的にはHEISTはこれらより全然面白くないけど。 [/olist] 総評 　ステルス好きなら150円ならギリギリまぁ良いかなって思えるレベル。そうじゃない人には全く向いてない。

HEIST is the first game by Australian studio Atomizer Games, and I'm very impressed by it. Despite the fact that it has a few issues, it's still very well-made and a fun way to spend your evening. Please note that my playtime above doesn't reflect my actual playtime, it's actually around three hours, but Steam didn't register it for whatever reason (I think it's because my Wi-Fi was down and Steam wasn't online). Much like the description says, you play as a cat burglar in the Depression Era trying to avoid guards, pull off various heists, and escape without being caught, no false advertising here folks. The black and white color scheme gives off a noir film feel, and it works very well, so don't fret if you think it'll be bland and boring when you play it, I assure you it's not. First, the good stuff. There's a story in HEIST, but it's fairly simple, so don't expect Bioshock levels of storytelling. It's straight and to the point because much of the game revolves around and focuses on the gameplay. There are 7 levels, so the game, while short, is concise, with the developers focusing their time on perfecting these specific levels instead of flying off the rails and having the game stray from its main focus, the stealth, and its level design. I love stealth games, and I'm a huge fan of the Metal Gear series, so if you are too I think you'll like the gameplay at the very least. The level design is fantastic with each room being a puzzle in itself with you trying to decide how you'll tackle the challenge and steal the item/escape. There's no time limit on any of the levels so don't stress over that. HEIST is a game about taking your time to pull off the perfect heist and focuses on strategy over action. After every level you get a new tool to aid you in the missions, these include, but aren't limited to trip wires, smoke bombs, and cherry bombs (purely for distraction purposes). There is an arrow to guide you to your objective, so you don't get lost in the levels (it'll pop up when you press the TAB key). I guess the only con I can give HEIST is its AI. The guards are incredibly easy to exploit, and you can pretty much cheese your way to your objective. This is because there are green objects (couches, desks, etc...) that you can hide under and become invisible even when you're being chased, they also act as a sort of "quick save" point. Theoretically you can sprint to the next one if you know where it is and work your way towards your objective that way. If you make enough distance between you and a guard that's chasing you and make it to a dark area it's fairly difficult for them to find you. Effectively, the game isn't that challenging in this aspect. I also did run into one bug where the guards kept colliding with each other, meaning that I had to restart the level (granted, I'd only played five minutes of said level up until that point, and it only happened once). I recorded that moment and uploaded it to YouTube, and it's accessible via the link below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1DgwXsow-4 Once the devs fix this collision issue and point it out in this review's comments I'll gladly edit the review to reflect that. Nevertheless, despite the AI issues, HEIST is a fairly good game where you can just sit down on a weekend and have a tea while you play it. It takes around three hours to beat, so don't worry about it getting in the way of your work. The game was cheap in my country but if you feel that it's too expensive for a three-hour experience wait for it to go on sale and see if the price warrants the playtime at the discount that it's on when it goes on sale. Overall, I feel like HEIST is pretty good and worth your time, and it's very impressive given that as far as I know this is Atomizer Games first game. I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to the next game they release in the future.