Recent reviews by Farismarvelous

Intravenous is an incredible stealth game, I loved every second of it's hardcore tactical stealth gameplay, I have been looking badly for a game like this for so long, a slow extremely detailed and difficult experience where I felt I was truly hunted down.

I went through most levels without killing or knocking out enemies, complete ghost, they never knew I was there and it felt extremely rewarding, I can very much tell the developer knows their stuff, Intravenous is a love letter to early stealth games like Metal Gear and specially Splinter Cell.

Lighting system, sound system, different movement options, different floor materials affect how much noise you make, the more equipment you have the louder you are and you'll be spotted more easily, suppressed guns still make enough noise to attract close enemies, equipment slowed me down so I went through most levels with just a pistol as a last resort.

When I did have to fight for my life, it was super intense and difficult and the AI works quite well most of the time, they aren't dumb and they'll notice if you forget to close a door or turn off a light, they'll see blood on the ground from a guy you killed and dragged, they'll flank you, they'll surround you, they'll pair up and stay together to make it harder for you to take them out, they'll conduct slow tactical searches room by room near the last position you were spotted at.

I played on "true" difficulty and the last mission was brutal, I screwed myself by wasting my last save thinking I didn't save and so I had to stealthily kill 27 guys while I had a pixel of health, one mag left and body armor that only slowed me down, it all felt completely hopeless knowing that one single mistake would be the end of me but I continued nevertheless, that feeling of hopelessness with all odds stacked against you right at the end of the game was beautiful.

There's quite a decent amount of levels and the game is a bit lengthy for an indie game, the level design is great and enjoyable but becomes a bit more limiting later on if you're going for ghost, the pixel art is pretty sweet and there's definitely a bit of variety and replayability to tackle things differently.

I do think the top down perspective, while great and limiting can make things harder to tell whether parts of the environment actually cover you or not specially when you're sneaking in the moment, I remember standing up behind store shelves thinking I couldn't be seen and I got blasted by a shotgun immediately after.

The sound design is great and massive props to the composer because all the music in the game is fantastic and fits perfectly whether you're at home relaxing before going back out there, going through a base stealthily or having to fight for your life as you get hunted down, it really enhanced the experience.

As for the story, it was alright, I enjoyed seeing it unfold but to me it wasn't anything too special, some of the dialogue can be a bit dumb and goofy but other than that I think Intravenous is a fantastic extremely underrated stealth game that is very mechanically in depth and is well done.

I went in with low expectations and I was still disappointed

Love this way more than any other mountain climbing game, super intense and requires tons of skill to master, good stuff!

Pretty underrated little game made by devs who started out making source horror mods (Nightmare House 2 which is great by the way)

Unique and has clever ideas that are executed pretty nicely, a little goofy here and there but great stuff, one of the chapters felt a bit weak and the whole end section is a little strange but overall pretty solid through and through, loved it

I couldn't even get to the half way point of the game before I had to go through a bunch of reused maps with nothing new added and most of the objectives being fetch quests

Get the game on a sale and play it only with a friend if you want a generic half decent stealth game

Shame the studio went under though