Serial Cleaners

Serial Cleaners offers up an incredibly unique premise, some fun characters, and a lot of great levels with a surprising level of interactivity to tell us stories that aren’t really told too often. Couple that with a great sense of style to evoke the 90s and Serial Cleaners becomes a surprisingly interesting game.

A glorious pulp style mixed with engaging stealth gameplay makes Serial Cleaners a compelling 90s narcotic to sink your time into. The trip may be a little bumpy on account of the bugs and inconsistent AI, but you’ll be left feeling fulfilled and ultimately satisfied, which is more than Scarface or Vincent from Pulp Fiction can attest.

As a straight, old-school stealth experience Serial Cleaners certainly delivers. There's very little fluff or filler, with compact mission areas, clear objectives and little reason to deviate from the plan.

Showing a different approach from the existing action games, Serial Cleaners is a fun game filled with artistic visuals seem to be inspired by postmodernism and street art. However, the slow tempo compared to previous work and dumb Police AI are reducing the tension of 'infiltration'. Also, can't expect the replayability due to the lack of challenge mode.

Serial Cleaners is a fun top-down stealth game that will test your patience and sense of timing. Who would have thought vacuuming the floor would be so fun?

Serial Cleaners has taken the monotonous act of cleaning and spun it on its head by placing it in a gritty criminal world with characters that are eccentric and passionate about getting the job done. Though the gameplay can be repetitive and the dialogue may make you wince, the location art and the special abilities of each character makes up for the lack of “action” in this “action crime” game. Instead, the elements of dead bodies, shining pools of blood, and the game’s dark colour palette brings the excitement as you clean up the carnage other games would usually have you create.

Serial Cleaners is built upon the good foundations set by its predecessor, carried on by new characters that expand its interesting narrative concept. However, its stealth mechanics are a bit flawed and the innovative thrust of the first chapter got a little lost in this sequel.

Quotation forthcoming.

It's hard to find much fun in Serial Cleaners. Although its gameplay is creative, the actual effect is not gratifying: there is more negative feedback than positive, which constantly consumes players' patience. Although the four protagonists have their characteristics, they have never really completed a mission together, and many plot highlights in the game have been wasted in vain.

This is good sequel for fans thanks to its setting and plot, but it’s still stuck in a somehow outdated gameplay.

Serial Cleaners, with its intriguing mood, feels like a Tarantino's movie. Unfortunately, it could have done better on AI, because you don't actually feel that something is at stake, when you face dumb enemies that wouldn't even notice a missing corpse.

As a stealth-action experience, Serial Cleaners is most certainly a breath of fresh air, continuing to build on the foundations set by the series’ first outing in 2017. Between the added uniqueness of the rest of the crew, the diverse and interesting level designs, the non-linear story with freedom of choice, and just good old cleaning action to be had, Serial Cleaners is everything you would want in a sequel; just be wary that some polishing is still needed for the perfect finish.

Although its stealth systems can feel a little too forgiving and easy to work around, Serial Cleaners’ grungey story is still one well-worth going through thanks to its likeable cast, sense of style, varied levels, and satisfying core mechanics that manage to stay fresh throughout the adventure.

Unfortunately, Serial Cleaners is not as striking as its predecessor: the adventures of Mr. Bob and his company of Cleaners attract the player more with a deep story and narrative branches to discover, all with a pleasant jazz accompaniment and a peculiar aesthetic rendering but from the fluctuating effectiveness. The simple and arcade gameplay is ideal for those who want to approach stealth and better frame the genre, and it is satisfying overall. Artificial intelligence is the Achilles' heel of the entire experience and its shortcomings have not allowed the potential of the playful offer to be fully expressed. If we add to this the lack of replayability, the criticalities of the product become even more evident.

As an avid fan of stealth games, I wanted Serial Cleaners to be much more than simply a prettier and more diverse version of the first game with a cool storyline.

Sadly, when everything’s take into account, Serial Cleaners doesn’t live up to its predecessor. The cleaning/stealth gameplay is solid and there are some great level concepts, but the story doesn’t offer much motivation and there’s plenty of potential here that goes untapped.

Serial Cleaners is a clever story about mob’s crime scene cleaners, unfortunately spoiled with a couple of annoying flaws, e.g. an irritating save system or the tendency to waste your time by making you wait for something idly. Overall, it probably won’t wow you, but is quite engaging and has a distinct, enjoyable atmosphere backed by an excellent soundtrack.

Serial Cleaners abandons the arcade style of the first chapter to embrace a more dense narrative, but without really updating the gameplay the result is not up to par.

Serial Cleaners is a game full of fascinating ideas, but sadly it’s a flawed gem. Still, it should be applauded for taking big swings and presenting things in a way that’s simple to understand. Serial Cleaners has some significant mechanical complexity but presents it so cleanly anyone can pick it up without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, along the way it seems to have lost the sense of tension that’s essential for a good stealth game.