Looking at all the new titles being announced today it's hard to keep track with all of them. I say this as someone who currently has unlimited time on their hands with an unhealthy addiction to gaming that I use as a coping mechanism to curtail my perpetual self deprivation; even I'm getting overwhelmed with the sheer number of new games, re-releases and remakes. Thus it's always nice when I can spot that one game in the crowd that makes me sit up and point at the screen, "Hey, isn't that?" And yes, against all odds I managed to find an honest to goodness sequel to a small-time game that I actually really enjoyed, who'd a thunk it? (This certainly does make a change of pace from all those games where I have to delve into every single web domain that merely mentions it just to get a semi-coherent gameplay description.) So it's with some experience and expectations that I cover 'Serial Cleaners'.
Now first a little bit of history so we're on the same playing field. 'Serial Cleaner', the first title, was a quirky game out of the studio 'Draw Distance' that proposed the scenario of playing as someone who 'cleans' crime-scene's of evidence before the police can collect that evidence. He was essentially a contractor who specialised in cleaning bloodstains and absconding with bodies in the middle of active crime-scene investigations scenes. (Which, you've got to imagine, has to be a little bit too late, no? If the police are already there than you have to imagine they've at least been alerted to the fact a crime has happened.) The gameplay played out as a stealth based title with an isometric perspective, good classic stealth fun. In aesthetic, the game utilised it's 70's setting to make it's world a celebration of everything from that decade in style, music and even popular movie references. Basically it was, and is, a great little title that's certainly worth your time for the low price it's currently at on Steam.
'Serial Cleaners', much as it sounds, is an expansion upon that original premise that proposes to introduce more 'cleaners' into the story of events. As it happens, however, this doesn't appear to be the prototypical framework placed in order to accommodate for a multiplayer system, far from it, but rather a increased roster for the single player to choose from. Of course the natural question to ask at this point would be what exactly it is about each character that should draw our attention to them, as presumably they'll all come with their own backstories, motivations and character skills. (Although if this game has a mirror-image of the first game's gameplay then I doubt we'll have to worry about if their personalities are interesting. Not much talking from what I remember.) As we've only a teaser trailer to go off for the moment there isn't a great deal of concrete information on that regard, but the Steam page has offered us the team's thesis on how this should all play out. Apparently all four characters will have their own play styles and 'perspectives' (whatever that means) which cover the vague titles of 'Street smarts', 'Brute Force', 'Tech skills' and 'old fashioned'. A curious assortment who's implementation I do wonder about, but the team seemed competent enough the first time around so I'm willing to cut them some slack. (How does a 'Brute Force' play-style fit into a stealth game anyway?)
Aesthetically the game has taken a huge shift in order to sufficiently distance and differentiate itself from the predecessor; jumping more than 20 years into the future out of the 70's and into the late 90's. Whereas the original was very much shaped around it's image of the 'swinging seventies', this title title already describes itself as a "Homage to 90s Cinema" with inspirations like "Tarantino" and "B-Movie action favourites" being thrown about. I'll be honest, I'm not as familiar with the 90's aesthetic as I am with the 70's so a lot of what they are proposing goes above my head, but the team seem to know what they're aiming for so that's all that really matters. In their Steam description they touch upon a style formed from "a decade full of brightly coloured optimism... and the grime underneath it all." which I'm sure rings out to some 90's-heads out there. They've also apparently tailored their music to the decade, although all I head from the teaser was dis-concordant Jazz so again, I'll take the team's word on that front.
Another step up on the graphics department is the way that, judging from the screens and two seconds of gameplay in the teaser, we're upgrading from an isometric flat 2D world to a isometric 3D one. Now, admittedly, I do think this costs some of the charm of the original game and it's angular art style, but the new world does fit surprisingly well with the new direction they're heading. There's still the comic-book feel to the world, but the third dimension allows for more slanted shots that show off the environment a little more. One screen I absolutely love displays this beautifully as we see a police cordon over a parking lot that's littered with loud graffiti everywhere, it really does help the world speak out a bit more. Also, I'm a big fan of the whole 'New York' setting that I'm fairly certain they're going for here, real 'Max Payne' of you.
If there's one interesting aspect that I've grown curious about (learnt from Steam and not the teaser) it's the proposition of a 'non-linear' story that has the player pick up the parts the want to hear, presumably by picking the character they want to hear from next. Now in concept I think this could be an absolutely fascinating way to tell some sort of grander narrative, having these various folk who specialise in being around events, instead of being involved in them, gradually picking up on the main plot. It's like a complete evolution upon what the old Thief games did back in the day. On the otherhand, however, it could be a mess of bit-fed information that requires several playthroughs and a whole time-line graph just to construct a vague idea of what's going on. (Think the messy narrative of Fallout 1 x 20.)
I just think that if I'm correctly interpreting this bullet point then Draw Distance have opened themselves up to a mother of a challenge in pulling this off, and I commend them for their attempt, I truly do. (Fingers crossed it turns into something worth bragging about.) That being said, I don't hope for a title like this to get too serious and bogged down with telling a cohesive narrative, because at the end of the day the first title succeeded on the strengths of it's gameplay and sly gallows humour. (at least from my point of view.) I mean for goodness sake, the main character is called 'Bob C. Leaner'; Ain't nothing po-faced about that! In essence I admit that this concept does kind of remind me of Party Hard, with this sequel idea actually reminding me of Party Hard 2, so I hope for something similar to those games in respect to direction. (If you're familiar with them.)
In conclusion, Serial Cleaners is a sequel that I didn't expect from a game I actually quite enjoyed, so I'm happy to see what becomes of it. Draw Distance appear to be self publishing this title too, as opposed to the first game, so I'm happy they now have the flexibility to do so, because theirs is a skillset I'm quite enamoured by. (Also, they worked on the 'Vampire: The Masquerade' series, something I dream of doing one day, so I have to give them props for that.) I applaud Draw Distance for keeping this game feeling fresh whilst familiar to the last title, and curiously await seeing how it plays out for them. (Fingers crossed it's good!) May cool, off-beat ideas for games like this become more of the norm in the next generation of gaming, This is the sort of stuff that I like to see.
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