Intravenous

Intravenous is my favorite stealth-action game. Its a short but fun and charming game of very high quality, in a time where there are very few good & remarkable stealth games coming out.
I think it does a really good job for all playstyles : Ghosting, stealth killing and combat are all very good, which is different from most other such games : Usually the combat in stealth games is pretty terrible, or maybe stealth kills/knockouts just trivialize everything. This one does a great job of making all three coexist.
Playing mostly ghost and non-lethal is fun because this is a genuinely very good stealth game. It does an excellent job with light-and-dark and sound mechanics, theres a lot of cool things you can do for distractions.
Stealth is also a pretty major part of the combat, too : Constantly weaving in and out of the line of sight of the enemies, staying in the dark so its harder for enemies to shoot you down, etc.
Combat is very deadly for both sides if youre playing on the "True" difficulty, it can be very exciting and satisfying. A lot of people would say it feels similar to Hotline Miami, which is pretty positive.
The AI is mostly very well made and very fun : They respond to things very well, they will try to stick together when theyre aware youre going around killing everybody, and so on. Early game enemies are slower and innacurate, but as you progress more, they become sharper, being far faster at shooting you down
The arsenal is cool : gadgets are neat, everything factors into how much noise you make, you can select three different types of armor (or none), the equipment you have holstered increases your noise when moving around. You have two choices for suppressed pistols : The normal one which is a potent firearm but makes quite a lot of noise, far more than your typical videogame silenced pistol.. Or a weapon made for shooting animals, that is much weaker and slower, but quieter and capable of taking down people too.
Its full of great interactions and mechanics. Bashing doors into enemies, using your own microphone to make noise and bait in enemies, getting killed by the shrapnel of your own explosion, enemies getting disoriented and accidentally firing at their friends after you flashbang them, enemies trying to run away from a grenade and getting blocked by their friends right behind them, enemies rushing to the other side after they see you get inside a ventilation shaft...
The game is also aesthetically awesome : The soundtrack is fantastic, the atmosphere of the levels is great and the NPC chatter during stealth is pretty entertaining, there are descriptions for every weapon and caliber, a lot of the UI looks awesome, and so on. Theres a lot of cool gameplay related things like the choice between the two silenced pistols, how everything plays into your noise, and the general behavior of the AI that adds to it.
The story is more divisive : Its a pretty basic and quite edgy, its not really trying to be a coherent proper nuanced plot, its just a plain entertaining revenge story. Its admitedly its a bit cringy, and i get why some people dislike it, but i think it was pretty entertaining, and it matched the gameplay really well. Its just fun.
Genuinely very great game, i would recommend this to anyone that likes stealth games overall, and im very interested in the sequel.
There are a few things that i wish were better about this game, such as the low enemy variety, the lack of variety in terms of objectives, and how enemies are often innefective at combating the player camping in a spot with only one entrance.
I also feel like enemy footsteps can be too hard to hear when they are sprinting in combat, in part because of the soundtrack, which can make it pretty easy to get caught off guard.
But overall, theres nothing very bad, and its consistently very fun, and i heard that the sequel will improve upon some of these aspects, like adding more forms of primary objectives & side objectives.
My personal recommendations for playing the game :
- Play on 'True' difficulty for your first playthrough.. The highest difficulty is not good, its actually easier and gets in the way of a lot of cool features.
- Enable "Tactical reloads" in the settings.
- Disable the light cone : its as if you had a flashlight attached to your face, in a game about hiding in the shdaows, which imo is quite ugly and makes it hard to see what places are considered dark. But that may make it harder to see in the first few levels before you get NVGs.

I thought this game was a blend for Hotline Miami and Splinter Cell, but it's its own beast.
Once you take the time to understand all the mechanics the dev crafted into it, you will realize it's really well done and far from trivial.

it's alright. cool stealth mechanics, but the maps are kind of bland with few difficulty increases aside from the amount of GOONERs. the story and OST are nothing fancy either. and even if it's realistic, the enemy alert level never really dies down, so they'll be camping the same spot for minutes because they saw you. i recommend playing this game as a stealthy hotline miami and not like a traditional splinter cell type experience. if you try to go in, killing the least amount of people, you don't get the same feeling of fast paced improvisation you have to do on the spot to survive the onslaught of patrols the game throws at you.
edit: of fucking course the game is free a week after i buy it ffs

ALL JUNKIES MUST DIE... but just in the game not in real life. VENGEANCE IS MINE... but for real being a junkie is a bad way to go through life consider getting the help you need. MUST MAKE DARK ALLEYS SAFE FOR ALL HUMANKIND... but honestly drugs are bad for you consider a whole food regimen and cut out all the highly processed food 'stuffs'.
You know what maybe we should have stayed in the ocean, I never heard of fish getting high under water or having drug cartels. Nancy would approve I'm sure.

Intravenous is an excellent homage to the Splinter Cell games of old, blending in Hotline Miami's top-down intense combat coupled with the calculated and methodical planning seen with the likes of the Metal Gear Solid entries, where you take on the role of a civilian-turned-mercenary who delves into the gritty and dark underworld of narcotic fiends, drug dealers and vicious gangsters in a classic noir tale of revenge.
With how much there is to cover for an indie of this impressive scale as far as what the development studio, Explosive Squat Games, set out to accomplish in respects to the stealth-action genre, first I have to give a huge kudos to them for creating a game that captures such a tense yet alluring atmosphere. My reason for mentioning this, in particular, is down to how the element of darkness plays a key role in this game in more ways than one, with the more obvious reason primarily being to set the grim tone for this game after the prologue alongside the emphasis on stealth itself. Seeing as the gameplay largely revolves around black operations in regards to each objective, it only makes sense to have the whole game set during the night and have its many dangerous inhabitants reflect the dystopian nature that our protagonist finds himself in.
On the note of stealth, one might find that this would largely be a game where you shoot it out in tactical fashion and, whilst that is largely true, going out in loud gung-ho fashion is but one way of playing Intravenous. Since the game gives you plenty of options as far as how to achieve your objectives, from the wide variety of lethal weaponry that is suitable for different combat encounters to more non-lethal options such as tranquilizer rifles and tasers to knock out enemies for those who prefer a more pacifist route. All of that and more, with using doors to bash against those approaching it to knock them out or throwing a bottle acquired on the field to distract a well-stationed guard to lure them out for choking behind alongside other creative methods that cunning players can use to their advantage!
Seeing how one aspect of Intravenous that I particularly love is its attention to detail, given how I spoke earlier of how the game's choice of lighting is not just for the aesthetics as it plays into how visible you are to enemies and whether they can spot you quickly or not. It also helps that one of the first levels has you go through an obstacle course which emphasizes a lot of the more subtle elements of this indie's gameplay, including how fast you move as well as the surfaces themselves each having their own unique attributes to how loud they are to step upon. For example, some situations will require you to run fast on your feet when you need to quickly move from one concealed spot to the next during stealth encounters or when you need to book it to evade armed groups hot on your trail during the heat of combat. Meanwhile crouching slowly can be critical when moving in the dark nearby hostiles to evade detection where speed won't help or when approaching an enemy to knock them out from behind.
This is all important to note as Intraveneous' combat is hardly what I would call 'forgiving' to inexperienced players as, even on the easier difficulties, the mercenary you control can only take a few bullets from handguns/uzis or a couple of rounds from the more powerful firearms before going down. Whilst one can mitigate this somewhat with the choice of armour they bring onto the field, the price of picking a fully-armoured Kevlar & Plate vest over a more minimalist approach to wearing practically none is with the cost to movement which is arguably a trait that is just as crucial to survival as is the ability to take several more hits.
Factoring all of this together coupled with my own personal experiences with the game, I can confidently state that the tactical stealth gameplay requires the player to pay close attention to where they're going and how to approach each potential combat encounter. Seeing as this gives the player a satisfying playstyle to play and experiment with regardless of what they choose as almost all levels are well-designed for both types of gameplay, hence it being quite fun to mess around and slowly learn the skills you'll need for the higher difficulties which, outside of achievements and bragging rights, isn't necessary for unlocking unique content unlike in some games.
It goes without saying that what's on offer here will easily satisfy any action fan whilst also giving plenty to the more cunning of stealth lovers who crave some thorough tactical planning, given the surprising degree of complexity when planning out how to infiltrate a complex and being able to adapt on the fly, a skill that becomes vital with harder difficulties making things much harder on you coupled with fewer saves per level and other restrictions to boot!
Though I do have some minor criticisms to point out with Intravenous here, the first of which is a personal disappointment for me as, a little over halfway into the game, you are presented with a choice that appears to have a major impact on the overall narrative and direction of the campaign. However, going from a bloodthirsty first campaign into a second, more pacifist, run and making a different choice aligned with that playstyle showed me that very little changed outside of a brief extra level containing dialogue and several other events having somewhat altered descriptions; ultimately this results in a missed opportunity for providing extra challenging levels geared towards either combat-focused or stealth-oriented players.
Other problems I came across included the AI occasionally glitching out with doors in awkward angles which result in them either spamming the door for a moment or essentially getting stuck in place (which can be either a good thing or something that hinders you depending on the position/angle you're working with) as well as one of this game's more unusual features, being able to use your real-life microphone to lure in enemies as an adjustable alternative to a generic remark by the character himself at a low volume. Whilst I appreciate the interesting dynamic this plays into the immersion side of things and also serving a purpose in the actual gameplay, the execution is less than desirable as both my headset (a regular run-of-the-mill brand I got for cheap) and a PS5 controller that comes with a built-in mic did not function with the game itself despite numerous checks on my end to ensure they were receiving audio input.
Despite these flaws muddying the glowing reception a little, I find Intravenous to be an excellent game that pays its tributes to the best of both the stealth and action genres that I would highly recommend anyone who has still yet to experience this gem of an indie to have a look at, if not get it on sale if the higher price point at the very least. Since it's not often that a game leaves me quite satisfied but also itching for more and already planning on when to go back to it after exploring more of what Steam has to offer.
It's certainly been a long-winded journey for me, having bought several Splinter Cell games in the past primarily for its multiplayer content as opposed to the singleplayer which, as a kid growing up with the PS2 during a time when online was less about competitive skillful gameplay and more about wacky fun and just messing around with others for a good laugh, I could never have fully appreciated back then. However, playing Intravenous has been a good way of thoroughly understanding the multiple layers that such a game experience offers to its players and I can now look at the iconic series featuring the iconic paramilitary clandestine operative Sam Fisher with a new sense of respect and admire it for what it set out to achieve as well as the impact it had on the gaming industry as a whole that led to such excellent indies as this one right here.

Got this game for free and completed it in a week after realizing it's way better than the expected.
A top down Stealth shooter where you take control of a man driven by revenge after a personal tragedy. A cliche and basic setup for an action game but this one delivers, playing in "true" difficulty mode in which it is the original game vision , the game give you that old school splinter cell style gameplay minus the physical acrobatic, you can tranquilize or taste enemies to prevent lethality if you want to, you can turn off lights (can't shoot them though), shoot at cameras or throwing small objects to distract enemies and move through the levels in shadows.
The main objective on each levels are almost all about killing an npc though, and you can actually just go Rambo style and kills everyone on sight, however it's not that easy to do so because the guns are really lethal and you're outnumbered like 30:1 in the minimum on each level although the AI is not that good but they're aggressive once a gunshot is heard, also that depending on how you position yourself before letting the whole army knows you're there, you could find yourself being rushed from every directions.
There are several guns and tools to use although I reckon there's not much incentive to pick others beyond the 2-4 specific guns/weapons/tools that you need to complete the missions...
Overall as an indie top down Stealth shooter game, I like it that I decided to get the sequel.
On a note as usual for most of my reviews, I'm happy to report that the game has been patched to support 21:9 display aspect ratio despite that it uses pixel arts graphics and that it being a top down game means having ultrawide display mean you could see things farther than what people with normal display could and that it presented distinct advantage to the players (for example I could snipe an enemy from one corner to the other across my monitor where I wouldn't even be able to see that far if I had a normal monitor).
Get the intravenous bundle, you would save money buying both games (and even more so if both games for discounted in a sale) at the same time.

This game is something else. I went in expecting Hotline Miami mixed with Metal Gear (OSP of equipment and such) and Splinter Cell (The UI is basically a redesigned Chaos Theory Hud). But thanks to the steam page my expectations were wrong, in a good way. Unlike Hotline Miami you do NOT need to kill everything on the map in order to finish, you have an objective for each mission (ok, when you go down the revenge path you have 3 Missions where you have to kill everyone on the map). And thats the next thing, this game has 2 paths, Revenge and well whatever not Revenge is (I chose Revenge, in Hindsight a bad choice for the 1st playthrough because I was not prepared.
The Gameplay and pre-mission prep are great, also do yourself a favour do NOT activate any mutators and just go straight into "True" difficulty, its hard, challenging, sometimes even quite bullshit but the payoff is mwaah *chefs kiss*.
The soundtrack seems dynamic, akin to Payday, when detected and in combat you'll be glad if you have it at like 15% or below otherwise you'd get killed constantly while vibing (trust me I found out the hard way during the "Mob Casino" Mission).
The only real gripe I have with this game is the open map design, and the resulting long sightlines. It lead to a lot of Hotline 2 Style off-screen deaths, BUT only in the very late missions so I blame my thirst for Revenge on this. Because the Dev(s) clarify at every startup that the decisions are yours so you have to live with them.
Also I went back and bought the soundtrack, because that thing with the exception of "Kerfuffle" is pure heat. This is my opinion and I stand by it.
Highly Highly recommended if you like any of the mentioned games