Rats is a proper stealth game. By that I mean one where if you are seen it usually means you have screwed up your chances of finishing the level. There is very little chance for recovery. I had a blast playing through it.

Rats operates an extremely fast paced game. It does this through time restraints. You are given a short amount of time at the start of the level, often less than 1 minute. You have to complete the level within this time. But you can also, and should, pickup extra time. This practice means you often get very close to time running out before you just about pickup more time just in time. It makes the gameplay very hectic.

Upon looking at the steam page I thought Rats was a Monaco clone. It is nothing of the kind. There is very little combat in Rats. Your tactic of survival is mostly just hiding. Enemies have a set pattern to where they explore and where they can see you. You have to avoid the enemies by doing this. If you get caugth by them then you will loose a considerable amount of time. This is where I mean that being caught will most likely lead to you failing the mission. Yes you carry out heists like in Monaco but no you don't do it anywhere near the same way.

Collectables are a key part of the experience. Each level has a star ranking on how well you did. These consist of achieving various different factors. These include completing the level in a certain time, collecting all coins and collecting all of everything else. It takes a certain amount of stars to unlock new levels so getting as many as possible is key.

There is a very nice enemy variety as well keeping the experience interesting. Each enemy patrols in a different pattern that you have to avoid. Some enemies even involve certain techniques to get past them. Such as the fox is very fast so it may require you to get a speed boost powerup to be able to avoid it first.

So yeah there are also a lot of different powerup pickups. These vary a lot and consist of things like speed boosts, freezing enemies, invisibility and many more. They "need" to be utilized properly to be able to complete a level. Without them most levels aren't possible. But they definitely make the gameplay more varied and interesting.

There are also out of level upgrades. These are bought with coins earned in the levels. I'm not sure how I feel about these. Some of these upgrades seem reasonable but some just seem overpowered. Some of examples of ones I like are a magnet to pickup coins and a rocket speed boost powerup. But then there is also an upgrade to add an extra 30 secs to the clock on every level. This renders your work on previous levels pointless. You can now do the previous levels so much easier! So the upgrades could do with a bit of balancing.

One suprise was the games soundtrack. It fits perfectly with the fast paced feel of the game. It is varied enough to keep it interesting. A very nicely designed soundtrack definitely compliments the gameplay nicely.

The games difficulty progresses at a nice rate. The first 10 or so levels you could probably find yourself completing within only a few tries. But it then starts to get very difficult. The level I am currently on, which is one of the last levels, I have tried probably about 30 odd tries. But the beauty of the game is that I am still determined to complete the level whatever it takes!

But the graphics are something that aren't great. I'm not saying there bad because in some places they are really good. For example I love the unique graphics on the menus and especially the map screen. The problem comes with the fact that they are too inconsistent. They don't always follow the same style and are all over the place. Things like the game characters are nicely designed but they don't fit with the design on the vegitation on the level. It feels like they put effort in on some places then at the last minute decided to really quickly make up the other assets.

What Rats could really do with is a leaderboard. It is the type of game that could desperately benefit from it. I mean a game where you have to complete a level within a certain time would be perfect with a leaderboard. I for one would love to be able to compare my times with friends. It would really make the game more fun for people in the long run and would give people a challenge to beat. It is has been said a leaderboard is in the works but I think it really should have been in there for lauch.

I should also briefly mention that achievements aren't currently working at the time of posting. I reached out to the developer and they told me it should be fixed in the next update sheduled to come out in about the next few weeks. I will try and update this when they are available but there are no guarantees. There are in game achievement though that are working correctly.

The biggest problem I have had though is crashes. I have had a lot of them and every time it seems to crash for a different reason. This is something that needs to get sorted! I have probably had about a crash every 20 minutes or so. I also experienced a bug with a flickering UI in the game that required a restart to fix.

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with this game. I want to make this highly recommended on my ranking but currently the issues I have stated mean I can't do this. If you can deal with the problems I stated then the game is steal at it's cheap price tag of £3.99. But it might be a good idea to wait a bit until some of these problems are fixed.

• Don't ever buy this game.
  
• Maybe consider it on a sale.
  
• An average game.
  
• A good game that should definitely be considered.
  
• A must play!

Disclaimer: I was provided an early review key for free by the developer to make this review.

This is a fun puzzler with bundles of cartoonish charm. You play as RedEyes, a kleptomaniacal rat. The aim of each level is to run through the building, nab the diamond and then leg it before the time is up, picking up bonus coins along the way and trying not to get caught whilst doing so.

The game has been well designed and is satisfying to play. I found myself replaying levels over and over to complete all the tasks and get that elusive final gold star, and yet it rarely got tiresome to do so as it can with other timed puzzle games. What helps with this is the fact that the only way to get a "Game Over" as such is to run out of time, which is when the police arrive (I say police, it's a single grizzly bear in a uniform. A really, really fast bear). Even if you run out of time, if you're close enough to the exit you can still complete the level if you out run the bear. This leniency really helps keep frustration levels down. Getting detected by guards doesn't lead to automatic penalties either - instead you only lose time beating them up if you get caught. Sometimes it's much faster and easier to run to the exit alerting all the guards, resulting in a mad, Benny Hill-type chase through the corridors.

The visual style is nice and cartoony. The animal characters have been well thought out, with funny expressions and sound effects to match. It also has a great soundtrack, which really puts you in the mood for sneaking around in a black polo neck.

The trailer for the game didn't impress me all that much, but I found that the time just flew by when I first started this game up. Highly recommended.

Know what you're getting into! This is not a casual game.

This is a pretty good game. A bit similar to "The Marvellous Miss Take", with a similar hardcore difficulty/tediousness curve. Memorization, retrying and optimizing your runs through the levels are key elements.

The "casual" tag is very misleading. Most of the other reviewers didn't play it for long. So what they do not mention is that it gets very hardcore after about two thirds into the game. If you're the type of person who wants to finish a game (or at least see the last level), there is alot of restarting the levels. I'm not talking about perfect runs but just finishing a level with bare minimum requirements becomes very tough.

You have to do lots and LOTS of trial-and-error runs through a level before you even know a route that can get you through it, let alone execute that route in a good enough way to actually make it through. It becomes tedious, depending on your perseverence and patience. But if memorization, retrying and optimizing your run is your thing, this is actually a PLUS for the game.

There is a time limit, if you run out of time, you will have to begin from the start, so during the "learning phase" you can NOT just go through the level and see how to do it. So in the later, bigger levels you incrementally find your way each run a little farther, that also contributes to the fact that you have to restart ALOT to find a good route.

When you first look at Rats -Time Is Running Out! the first game that probably comes to mind is Monaco. While the games are similar, Rats - Time is Running Out is quite a bit different. While in Monaco you need to plan out your heist and move somewhat slowly, in Rats - Time Is Running Out you just need to act since you are always racing against the clock. I would also say that Rats - Time is Running Out is also easier than Monaco.

What I really like about the game is that the game is simple to control but provides a moderate challenge. The only controls in the entire game are the directional buttons used to move your character. The developers did a great job giving you just enough time that it isn't frustratingly hard but in a lot of the levels you are in a race against the clock to reach the exit before you are caught.

I wouldn't say the game is particularly long. It took me around four hours to beat all of the levels. I didn't perfect all of the levels though and I didn't spend much time with the challenge maps so if you pursue either you will likely get a couple more hours out of the game.

While the game is probably not for everyone, if the concept sounds interesting to you I think you should enjoy Rats - Time Is Running Out.

Note: I received a free review copy of the game but I received no other compensation for this review and receiving the review copy had no impact on the contents of this review.

Read My Full Review [www.geekyhobbies.com]

This game is endless trial and error.
Huge levels with many kays/switches, coins and bonus items - in most cases you will have find right track designed by authors to achieve all goals. Your reflex or inteligence doesn't matter - all that counts here is your memory.
This means that for later levels you need more trials.. And that reveals another bad side of this game - errors. If you repeat levels few times (and that is core mechanic of the game) - scripts aren't finished in right way. For example - some guards remain alerted after restarting level. So if you see guard for the first time and he already have exclamation mark near his head - embrace yourself - crash to desktop is comming. This is really annoing. Especially because it occurs mostly in more complex levels. This also makes this game another abandonware on steam - according to forums authors knew about this issue for 2 years and they done nothing to repair their code.
Visual side is mediocre but music and sound effects are decent.

Pros:
- music, sound effects,
- interesting powerups and related mechanics.

Cons:
- game is unstable (constant crashes to desktop during longer missions),
- maps design (too much trial and error),


It was quite fun for first hour. Longer playing revealed all bad sides and I simply cannot recommend this game.

fun maze-like puzzler game that races you against the time, while collecting gems and coins and avoiding the guards. Games is actually really fun!

A teadious stealth game, minus the stealth.

Pros--- An okay difficulty curve, optional routes to take, a good variety of enemies, could run on very low end computers, and it's easy to get all the achievments

Cons--- Controls are very stiff, everything is super repetitive, loading screens can take up to 30 seconds per level on my harddrive, and up to 8 seconds on my SSD!(Even though I get 1200-1500 fps in game), and doesn't require stealth on lots of levels.

My biggest issue with this game is that it falls to having "suggested stealth." This game looks like you need to walk in the shadows and not be seen, but more often than not you can just run right past enemies and get through the level fine, which is a let down if, like me, you got this game for a stealth expirience. The loading taking forever is the cherry on top for my negative review. If you want to get a perfect game on your profile this won't take long, but it's not fun to play. If you want to play a proper stealth game, go somewhere else.

Realistic

Rats - Time Is Running Out is one of those rare gems that doesn't come along very often, launching at a humble £3.19 might give you the idea that there's not much to it, but I've already had a great deal more fun with this game than AAA games that would charge more than £3.19 for just the DLC and a whopping £40 to £50 for the main product.

The basic premise is that you're a anthropomorphic rat and a thief trying to take back wealth from the corrupt banks in your city that of course are run by anthropomorphic pigs. The game plays out like a cross between a stealth game and a puzzle game and I'd say it excels at both, it reminds me quite a bit of the old school arcade puzzle games of yesteryear but with a sparkly modern shine. You sneak around levels collecting coins and trying to avoid various types of guards whose line of sight you can see to give you an indicator of how to avoid them (it amuses me that chickens can look in two directions at once but never straight ahead, very clever) your main goal is usually to steal a diamond which is all you need to complete a level, but as expected you get bonuses for pilfering the entirety of a levels goods and you get a time bonus that's perfect for speedrunners. It's worth your time to collect as many coins in a level as you can because certain levels require you to steal blueprints that when obtained can be converted into tools to help you on your heists for the right price, but keep an eye on the clock for should you take too long in a mission you'll find yourself being chased down by a bear who's a great deal faster than you are.

The art style of Rats is something I immediately fell in love with, it's got a very British feel to it, especially with the police sporting old style bobby uniforms and the flat cap our protagonist Redeyes wears to clearly identify him as a roguish scoundrel. The game has a nice soundtrack too, nothing special but the music definitely fits the tone of sneaking around and conducting heists and some of the sound effects are amusing, particularly the sound of the police siren when you run out of time on a level and have to escape from the dreaded bear.

All in all Rats is a great game and worth picking up at the launch deal of £3.19 but if you're reading this review late the game's full retail price is a mere £3.99 and it's definitely worth every penny. Stealth fans and puzzle fans alike will enjoy what Rats has to offer so if you're a fan of either genre be sure to give the game a look.

Fight crimefighters, steal diamonds and eat ALL the cheese!