[Review] Serial Cleaner: The Post-Crime Journey | Revista Level Up

By Pablo Vargas | pvargas@revistalevelup.com.

In the mythical and timeless 'Pulp Fiction', after a complex, ruthless and dramatic murder, Mr. Wolf -played by the living legend that is Harvey Keitel- appeared less than 10 minutes after a murder occurred to clean up the scene of the murder. crime. "I am Mr. Wolf and I solve problems" was his introductory phrase and he fulfilled it to the letter. Without bloodstains, clues to solve the case, incriminating details or loose ends, Mr. Wolf left the crime scene as if nothing had happened.

The Serial Cleaner aka. Mr. Wolf

This cinematographic context serves perfectly to illustrate the work of 'The Cleaner', the main character of 'Serial Cleaner', a game of stealth, strategy and infiltration that puts us in the shoes of a mafia 'Cleaner' who appears after of the brutal murders and executions delegated by the Caporégime of Cosa Nostra, taking charge of the collection of all bodies and evidence that could incriminate their clients and business partners, all this before the police do their thing.

Collect, clean and run away before the police detect us is the main objective.
Achieving it will not be as easy as it seems

With designs inspired by real cases from police files and the occasional easter-egg to the best of the seventh art during the 70's - the time in which the story is set -, each commission will put us behind a goal: to go from weapons and violence, infiltrate the crime scene, dispatch the bodies, collect the evidence -without leaving new ones-, and clean everything without leaving a trace.

The 'Cleaner Sense' will be vital to plan our stealth strategy and subsequent escape route

A premise that sounds simple on paper, but is far from it. Each of the crime scenes are guarded by shrewd law enforcement officers who will protect the evidence with their lives. Attentive to the smallest of changes or the most sensitive of noises, if we are detected in our task, we will be liquidated and it will be time to start over. And that's where the job gets complicated. With each reset, the stage changes the location of the Guardians' bodies, items, and routine.

The game allows us to use elements of the stage to generate distractions and use other alternate routes

To avoid trial and error, the game empowers us with a special ability. By pressing 'L1', we access our 'Cleaner Sense', a kind of extraordinary sense that allows us to see all the movements of our enemies in a global view -but without stopping real time or being able to move from our place-, which allows us to It helps to see the routes of the protectors of the law and possible hiding places, put together a strategy and go to accomplish our work soon. However, one of the greatest merits of 'Serial Cleaner' is that it's not exactly as simple as it sounds.

One false step and we'll have half an army of police behind us.

The difficulty of the game is fair and correct, which means that every time we fail in our objective -which will be on several occasions-, there is no reproach towards the game but towards the way in which we propose our infiltration strategy. This is something that the game is grateful for, since together with its evidence collection system in the form of trophies - a hobby that our peculiar character shares -, the title becomes extremely addictive, making it impossible to leave a stage without completing it 100 %, so that an order that can take 5 minutes can easily become an investment of half an hour in each of the main orders, plus their secondary missions inspired by classic movie scenes.

Tributes to movie gems like 'Enter the Dragon' are the order of the day

The obsession of our protagonist for boxing, betting and the cinema of yesteryear is something that is reflected in the re-playability of the title, since by completing and collecting each secret of the 20 main contracts, we will obtain "special passes" to collect evidence of mythical scenarios of the best of classic cinema. Yes. No DLC or paid content. Pure direct reward of our skills to unlock such varied content that ranges from the scenarios of 'Taxi Driver', through 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly', to 'Star Wars', as a pleasant tribute to the best of the seventh art .

After completing the game, contracts can be enjoyed in different challenge modes to beat the world ranking

This passion for cinema is something that is also reflected in the game's soundtrack, always in line with the rhythm of each level and a graphic section that is reminiscent of 'Hotline: Miami', but stands on its own with a beautiful color palette that hooks us from the first entry and keeps us always attentive to the small details of the setting, as a complement to a story that takes us through different events during the 70's and whose plot unravels gradually. masterful to a brilliant final twist that makes it worth every one of the more than 40 hours invested.

The ending of the story is just perfect

Its successful setting, key of black humor in the character's dialogues, solid plot and surprise twists make 'Serial Cleaner' a pleasant global experience highly recommended for fans of stealth and infiltration games, but at the same time a piece of collection for lovers of good cinema. All this accompanied by a solid background story, which we don't want to spoil, makes iFun4all's new work a mandatory review title.

Final Rating: 8/10 - Modern Classic, Must-to-play

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