Serial Cleaner Review

Serial Cleaner is a fast paced stealth game that is made by Curve Digital.

You play as a man named Bob, who lives with his mother. You are a cleaner for the mafia, when you receive a phone call you must go to the site of the latest mafia victim and eliminate all the evidence so your mafia friends aren't thrown in jail. The story here is fun and matches the overall theme that the game presents you with, from the music to the art style this all feels very much like a 80’s cop show.

Serial Cleaner is a game that has you running about areas with nothing but a vacuum cleaner and a car, your objective is simple clean up blood, bodies and collect evidence. While you are doing this you must hide behind trees, hide in closets and even hide in boats. You are the greatest cleaner the world has ever seen, you have a great sense for when there is a mess that needs cleaning. When you use your senses you can see the whole map and where the bodies and evidence are. The gameplay reminds me a lot of Hotline Miami due to its fast gameplay and brutal learning curve.

The collectibles that are scattered throughout the levels unlock different clothes for your character. They also unlock bonus movie inspired levels that definitely make collecting the items in each level worth doing. There weren't many clothes that stood out to me, but the bonus levels were fun to play and would satisfy anyone who liked the 80’s.

Your adversaries are the cops that are swarming each crime scene, you can't kill any as you are just a cleaner, you can however hide, figure out their patterns and avoid them at any cost. Beware though if they catch you they will kill you in one hit, they are faster and smarter than you. Once you have found a body, dumped it in the car, have collected all the blood, evidence and bodies from a map, you then have to run to the car without being caught by the police.

The art style and overall level design of Serial Cleaner is also a lot like Hotline Miami with a top down perspective, and a few close quarter levels that feel really similar to it. The game is a top down view which is nice and helps you with stealth and being able to see where the enemies are. The levels are also very colourful with lots of different places to go through, from a camp to a gym, there is quite a lot of variety in the places the game takes you.

The music also pulls you into the game's world with jazzy music that feels like it's pulled directly from the 80’s. Matching the theme of the game perfectly, although with the same music playing during every level it got very repetitive fast.