Developer: Fabrik Games
Publisher: Fabrik Games
Platform: PC, PS4
Tested On: PC
Filthy Lucre – Review
Ever wanted to smash, steal and murder on behalf of a scary London gangster? Then you should probably go and get some help… For the rest of us, we can get our thrills digitally with Filthy Lucre: The tactical heist game that puts you in the shoes of said gangster’s own personal revenge squad, and lets you loose to rob, blackmail and kill his enemies. They messed with the wrong guy and now is your chance to show them and make yourself rich in the process.
Story
A dangerous London gangster has been robbed of all of his ill gotten gains, and has hired you to steal back his loot and punish all those that have wronged him. There isn’t much beyond this as far as the story is concerned, but lets be honest, we’re here to smash and steal stuff, we don’t need much more than an excuse to do so. Each mission explains who you are dealing in with and how they have offended your mentor, and as you slowly steal back your patrons treasures, you will be able to display them proudly within a vault inside of your hideout.
Graphics
Filthy Lucre is displayed in a typical top-down, isometric view. The visuals are good and pretty modern looking. And whilst parts of the UI and menus do look a little clunky and lack polish, the animations are smooth and the backgrounds are absolutely excellent. Thanks to this, different levels and areas each have their own unique feel and atmosphere.
Sound
The audio is generally of good quality, the voice acting in particular is excellent and this really works well to flavour the murky London underworld you are exploring. The sound effects are likewise good and plentiful, whether you are picking a lock or destroying electrical conduits.
Gameplay
Filthy Lucre is an indie tactical stealth game, that challenges you to sneak around, staying to the shadows and silently take down enemies, or else bring out the big guns and blast through anyone who gets in your way.
You will be forced to deal with different types of enemies, and a host of different technological security measures such as cameras and lasers. Find inventive ways around them, or hack the systems and disable the alarms before causing chaos. There are also always a number of secondary objectives to complete, such as never being seen or robbing extra, hidden stashes in optional areas.
Combat itself is fairly difficult, but you get a handy laser pointer to show you exactly where you are aiming. The silenced pistol in particular, takes several hits to take down an enemy, so if you miss a few, your enemy has time to turn around and shoot back, completely destroying your “never detected” bonus. Instead you are better off creeping up behind enemies and taking them down one by one with your bare hands.
You can hide fallen enemies by putting them inside body bags and carrying them to remote locations. Being seen by enemies, cameras, or having dead bodies found will all increase your heat meter. If this gets high enough, reinforcements will be called, who will quickly show up with heavy weaponry and make your life very difficult.
During your playthrough you’ll come across several obstacles blocking your path, most notably locked doors. Some doors are electronically locked and will require you to steal a keycard from a guard or else lure one through the door and take advantage whilst it’s open. Normal locks can be picked, which takes a few seconds, or else you can just boot the door in, preferably directly into an enemies face. This will take out the unfortunate guard, but the noise may draw others if they are nearby.
You will get to hang out in your cool little hideout between missions, which is were you can set things like your characters look, or your equipment load-out for missions. Your load-out consists of two guns and two other items such as noisemakers to distract guards, or grenades to just blow them the hell up. You can also play co-op (both online and local) which is a big deal. You can play through each and every mission alone, or as a team, which promises even more fun as you brutally double-team poor, oblivious guards.
Your hideout is also where you select your next mission, before climbing into your van to get started. Missions generally range from stealing valuables, sabotaging a rivals operation, assassinating targets or some mix of all three.
One of the most annoying features is that you are unable to save whatsoever whilst in a mission. It isn’t like the missions are short either, there is a ton of content and different areas to explore in each and every map. So if you make one small slip up, you have to start all over again and the last half hour of stealthy gameplay was completely wasted.
You can understand why the developers took this direction, as the lack of a save feature does add real difficulty to the game and makes completing the optional objectives and getting onto the global leaderboard a real challenge. Which if you’re a hardcore stealth fan, you might really enjoy, but this could have been accomplished just as well with a limited number of saves (say 3 saves per mission) which wouldn’t cause half as much frustration for the player.
Conclusion
Whilst Filthy Lucre is not without its issues, it is non-the-less a diamond in the rough, and a fantastic addition to the indie stealth genre. The missions are varied and memorable, the large choice of weapons and equipment are excellent, and the addition of co-op play is just the icing on the cake. All in all, Filthy Lucre is just a hell of a lot of high quality fun. Besides, kicking a door off its hinges and into the face of an unsuspecting guard is always incredibly satisfying.
Filthy Lucre - Review,
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I think about trying this one out :p