I WAS GIVEN A FREE COPY OF THIS GAME BY THE DEVELOPER
If you’d prefer a video review, have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n0KUluzXhM
Turnover is a stealth game, and a hardcore one at that. It takes a top down Hotline Miami-esk approach, and rather boldly the game actually lets you straight up see the detection range for pretty much all of your enemies. In many ways it harkens back to old, challenging, stealth games, which has become somewhat of a lost genre, as it feels like you can be stealthy in almost any game now, and many of the games which originally had stealth at their core like Splinter Cell and Thief, have become closer and closer to action games. That’s was what really intrigued me about the game so I requested a pre-release review copy, here are some thoughts from a guy who has never really been into hardcore stealth games.
[h1]Presentation[/h1]
While there isn’t really anything new when it comes to the art style, it’s a unique blend of pixels and hotline miami. It doesn’t take any of the wackyness from hotline miami, but it gives the game it’s own, kind of dark, feel. And a large part of that is due to the atmosphere and the context of what’s explained about the world in the cutscene you get when booting up the game. Or, at the very least, I think that’s where the game is at its strongest; when it embraces its, kind of brutally depressing tone. The choir music that comes in when the guards have been alerted to your presence and are looking for you I thought was really inspired, I just felt that the tone shifted in the latter half of the game and found itself being a little more generic, which i’ll talk about a bit more in the story section.
[h1]Mechanics[/h1]
The mechanics are certainly good. This isn’t an easy game, and you are given a ton of different items and objects in the environment which allow for a lot a freedom. That said there is almost always an optimal way of playing, which there’s nothing wrong with, but just know that this isn’t really a game about multiple paths or ways of doing things, it’s about finding the right way of doing things. Like a stealth game should, each level is presented as a puzzle; the camera pans over to the exit and objectives to show you where you need to go, and then lets you roam free to figure things out. It starts simple, you just need to find your way to the exit in the early levels, but the longer the game goes on, the more enemies you need to avoid, and the more objectives you need to complete to create a path to the exit.
There are also optional objectives within’ certain missions that can grant you perks, and I have to praise the game for allowing these perks to be missed entirely. If you fail to complete the objective for a perk on a level, you cannot replay the level to get it. You’d have to start a new game, and get it the next time. It’s just a shame that the perks are not all that useful. The bonuses you get are really minor, like a very slight delayed reaction from enemies, and in the end I don’t know that they saved my life even once.
Despite the praise I’m giving it, the game has a pretty major flaw in my opinion, and that’s unpredictability. One in every ten times you are making your way through a level, you’ll die and it won’t be your fault. Whether it’s a companion running right into gunfire and therefore failing the level, or an enemy seeing you for seemingly no reason, there’s something every now and again which’ll really piss you off. It’s fine in a game like hotline miami which has short levels and checkpoints, but many of the levels in this game are very very long, and to have a good five minutes of work go down the drain because of some derpyness in the game really tries the player’s patience. It’s not a universal negative, because I know that there are some very patient people out there who can deal with this stuff, but if you have a relatively short fuse for frustration like me, and I’m betting most people, then this is going to be an issue for you.
[h1]Story[/h1]
I was a big fan of the story at the beginning of the game. It’s set in the very near future, in a, kind of, dystopian US. I say kind of, because, without getting too political, it’s basically a very corrupt US, and a lot of people would argue that the US right now is corrupt, but maybe just not hugely corrupt like in this version of the US. But without getting too hung up in the details, you are playing as a woman who has simply been caught in a corporate feud, and has found herself needing to sneak past men with guns in order to survive. I’m really compelled by that idea, it’s kind of what fueled the creation of another game called “This War of Mine” where the focus is on the real victims of war, rather than glorifying one side as the heroes and another as the villains. The only heroes in “This War of Mine” are the people that do what it takes to survive. And that’s how I originally viewed the story of this game. Unfortunately, as the game goes on she becomes more and more like a Bruce Willis character. She acquires more ways of killing enemies, like grenades, and the story at one point becomes about saving other people rather than saving herself. Maybe I’m selfish, but that was a lot less relatable to me.
I think they missed an opportunity here, and I wonder, now, what the point of the world building was. Why couldn’t it have been an office building in 2015 being threatened by terrorists if the main character was going to take it upon themselves to be a hero? What was the point of making the bad guys corrupt businessmen and politicians, and setting up the world as one full of bought, privatised, policemen? Was it just as an explanation for why the cops didn’t show up to help? The things that were interesting about the story to me just amounted to nothing, kind of disappointing.
[h1]Verdict[/h1]
It sucks to end on a negative note, because I am recommending this game, and it’s mostly down to the price to content ratio. The main story is 10-15 hours long, though can certainly be completed faster if you’ve mind for stealth, and is only $9.99 Steam with a discount on launch. It’s very very hard for me not to recommend the game because it’s gameplay, coming from a non-stealth fan, was satisfying and rewarding. Definitely worth the price tag.
