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My two favourite games of this year are very different - almost opposed - but have one important thing in common. The Witcher 3 is huge, opulent, authored, with simple gameplay working in the service of rich storylines and a bustling world. Invisible, Inc. is compact, efficient, procedurally generated, with a basic plot framing stories that emerge naturally from an exquisitely engineered ruleset. Both games, though, impress with their coherence: their total dedication to selling their fantasy and to avoiding the smallest detail that might break their spell. Strut like a sexy, magic monster hunter; commit daring heists with a team of neo-noir cyber-spies. Who wouldn't want to?A turn-based stealth game by the obscenely talented Canadian indie studio Klei - who made Don't Starve and Mark of the Ninja - Invisible, Inc. could steal Metal Gear Solid's "tactical espionage action" tagline without Snake even noticing. It fits it like a glove. Militarised corporations are taking over the world, and you must use a team of cybernetic agents - plus a powerful hacking AI - to liberate money, gear, upgrades and captives from their installations until you're sufficiently well equipped to take on their dark conspiracy.
Visually, Invisible, Inc. has an economical kind of elan: characters are crisply animated flat cartoons, moving through diagrammatic, isometric maps. I'd say you need to look beyond this plain surface to see the game's true depth, but you don't, because it's clear to see. Tapping keys flicks you between three views - normal, tactical and hacking - that describe this clockwork world precisely in units of distance and action, of sight lines, cooldowns, electrical power and firewall defences. Thanks to a clear tutorial and the well judged escalation of the campaign, the systems are easy enough to pick up, but there are quite a few of them, and their interaction is complex and deep.
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