Recent reviews by Yokai

because who has the time to read my soliloquy

Clandestine is a genius and unforgiving stealth game in which mistakes are lethal. The only way to avoid the mistakes is to have a good friend in the van monitoring you and planning ahead of time. This is a stealth game where non-lethal playthrough is rewarding because the non-lethal options are numerous and cool, whereas the guns are pretty much all the same and do the same thing without much skill needed. No advanced objective requires a kill. You will succeed or fail based on your preparation, co-ordination and skill alone. Exploration is rewarded but not capital.

Similar to
It's a mix of Hitman's social blending stealth and lethality counter among missions with Splinter Cell's cover hiding. The "hacking" is more akin to Volume's top-down approach with movement and action execution timing down to some of the abilities, and gives access to a map similar to Hitman's.

Also Katya kicks ass and doesn't give a ♥♥♥♥ you're judging her looks while she does.

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Clandestine perfectly captures the tension of spy team effort. Remember those spy movies and series where you get fast cuts between an agent in infiltration, struggling with a security "wall" and anxiously looking back at the incoming guards, while their technical counterpart nervously types in as many commands as possible on a computer to bypass the security? The tense exchange of words as the mission's success and usually the agent's life are at the mercy of the techie's ability? The exhilarating relief when, at the last second, the obstacle is overrun and the spy swiftly slips through and the guard passes by completely oblivious of the feat that was accomplished? This is what Clandestine is about.

The gameplay feels a bit like one of the player is a ghost, while the other is a zombie: Katya can do impressive stuff but more often than not will get killed easily when spotted; and since she's basically blind to the layout, security systems placement, guards routes and precise localisation of her objectives, there is a lot of room for fatal mistakes. On the other hand Martin is invulnerable and nearly all-seeing, he can be anywhere at a click and learn everything, but his digital fingers can't touch a dossier. You will need a friend to take that role you don't fill, and you'll both need to have voip and a good headset because things will get chatty.

I play as Katya with a friend. And I'll trade her anyday for a Solid Snake or a Sam Fisher. Katya doesn't have all the gadgets porn arsenal and that's exactly what drives the thrill of the infiltration, doing it all on your personnal skill as a player. I actually don't even pick a gun in my loadout so I'm not tempted to shoot people in the face. I just wander around using her cool non-lethal takedowns or plainly avoiding contact. Even the gadgets (I usually go for pager, banshee and modem) can be completely discarded. What matters is Martin.

Through Skype I can hear my friend frantically exploring the level and the computer network. He looks for the best route to the objective and takes care of the security devices while tagging guards, plans how to exfiltrate, gathers intel on the security measures, avoid the system admin and work towards secondary objectives. Usually all at the same time. His screen is split to offer a complete layout of the place showing everything linked to the network, a grid view of said network to access the hardware, a camera feed to keep an eye on Katya's point of view or cameras', and a log for objectives and retrieved passwords (if you use the text chat I can't predict a good future for you). But as he goes, there is a hard limit to what he can do. Some hardware can be on a different, unplugged network, or a location is so well guarded it's just simpler to go around and have a modem installed to get in from a different location. Objectives always require a physical presence to either get or steal paper dossiers or making contact with a human informant. No matter how technologically advanced / skilled Martin is, he can't physically alter stuff. What matters is Katya.

And that's why this co-operative duo works so well.

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• Katya has a killer character design. She totally owns her punk style and doesn't take ♥♥♥♥ from people whether they want to take her down, comment on her outfit or chat her up (go check on the security guy at the office for more on that).
  
  
• The voice acting is really cool. Granted it's not celebrities voices but honestly I'm very glad for the quality of the acting and of the writing. Some lines could be delivered a little faster for impatient players such as myself but considering the importance of the majority of the elements of the briefings that's not much of a problem. There's also a ton of optional dialogue to uncover, mainly in the offices, to reward exploring the universe.
  
  
• I also really dig the fact the Katya speaks fluently russian (and not russian yoghurt) when she can, guards from the first / tutorial mission speak spanish among themselves in Mexico etc. As in other medias (my favourite example is Inglorious Basterds), the language adds a very grounding element to the game and makes it more realistic while reminding you that you are indeed travelling a lot. It may come as a small detail (I remember Splinter Cell Chaos Theory having thai dialogues), but coming from a small indie team I love the extra effort it must have been.
  
  
• Animations are maybe the weakest technical element. While Katya has killer hand to hand combat movements, more mundane animations like running and talking were clearly rushed. Can't really blame LA animator(s?) for getting their kicks animating action stuff, but it's also very hard to not be stupidly fixated on people's mouths doing bizarre movements when they talk.
  
  
• Katya has no way of knowing how injured she is unless Martin tells her. You can't tell whether she was shot zero or six times by looking at her or how she moves, only by asking your operator in his van to check her vitals. While a health bar for the agent would supress the delightful tension of a non-numeric health system, "subtle" graphical variation on her body or animation would be perfect in my opinion to convey her general state.
  
  
• Finally, I hope it comes as no surprise that the hacking gameplay is actually not hacking ;) It is however the best "make you feel like you're hacking" experience I've played in a game that doesn't focus on teaching people what hacking is like. For those who want a better hand at "realistically" fiddling with computer systems I'd rather recommend Hackent or else Heart.Break().