It’s been the cool thing for about a decade now to make “retro” games. In some cases, they merely look like older titles, while others like to poke fun of older games in the dialogue. There are plenty new games that enjoy paying homage to older games, while others blatantly rip them off to make a profit. If you’ve ever enjoyed Metal Gear Solid, or perhaps more appropriately, the mass amounts of fan creations that made fun of it, this may be the perfect game for you.

Never Stop Sneakin’ is, at a glance, Metal Gear Solid on the Switch. If the visual aesthetic of the game doesn’t tip you off, the opening cutscene with the credits for each character and the music certainly will. HyperDuck SoundWorks did an amazing job of creating a soundtrack that rivals the earlier MGS titles, along with vocals reminiscent of Snake Eater, which of course was a play on James Bond music. Starting the first level you may even think you’re playing GoldenEye when the music that’s become synonymous with stealth games from the 90s begins playing.

However, unlike Kojima’s much lauded tactical espionage series, this makes a point of it not being serious from the start. Yes, the reference material had its fair share of gags throughout, but this starts the ball rolling and never really lets up. From your commanding officer (Major Milestone) jumping out of a plane without a parachute to save his cup of coffee to talking about how many screwdrivers you really need in life, the game is full of laughs. While the dialogue alone is great, you’ll be happy to hear a large amount of talent behind the voices, perhaps the most well-known being Arin “Egoraptor” Hanson (Game Grumps). I found this to be truly fitting given his previous animation work, with the ever popular Metal Gear Awesome.

If you haven’t played Metal Gear Solid in recent years, you may not recall that the controls are abhorrent. They weren’t at the time, necessarily, but by today’s standards they are utter trash. So it may be interesting to know that you can play this with a single hand if you choose to do so. Most of the game will only require the player to use an analog stick to move about the levels, with any actions being automated if the proper equipment is available. If you choose to, you can play the entire game using only the touchscreen. Is there an enemy guard patrolling? Simply walk up behind him and you’ll kill him with your sword. Do you have ammunition? Run into an enemy’s cone of view and you’ll shoot them before they see you. If you’re equipped with an EMP, running into a machines’ line of sight will put it and the surrounding machines in range out of commission. If you’re spotted without any peripheral equipment, you’ll want to run to cover before attempting a kill.

As you defeat enemies and open lock boxes and secret areas, you’ll gain ESP, which is the game’s currency. You can use this to purchase things such as health or upgrades to the items you are able to find throughout the game. Note that after beating a level, all your upgrades disappear, so you’ll have to reacquire these as you progress through the game. These may seem a tad unnecessary at the beginning, depending on your skill, but I always found it nice to purchase the ammo box as you never know when you’ll end up needing a bullet for a poorly timed enemy. Later on though, you may find yourself needing that extra health, or the assistance in finding more ammo on the battlefield.

Each level more or less serves as a goal to complete a new section of your base. This is necessary in order to take down the evil Amadeus Guildenstern, who intends on stealing all the presidents, good and bad, with his time machine. After obtaining what you need from a level, you are free to leave the mission or continue on to increase the chance of unlocking some new characters or weapon skins. None of these have any effect on the gameplay, but are fun for a laugh, like most of the game.

So what’s the downfall of this title? It doesn’t offer a whole lot of unique content. Whereas its inspiration had lots of backtracking, unique setups, and bosses to remember decades later, this offers fairly similar stages over and over with bosses you’ll face again and again. There is no need to figure out how to defeat the bosses, as the game makes sure to tell you at the top of the screen, and there aren’t any button prompts to use anyway. Because of this, the game is best enjoyed in short spurts, as long play sessions will undoubtedly cause game fatigue. Quite honestly, this game would be perfect on mobile platforms.

Whether or not you enjoy stealth games, this can be enjoyed by everyone, as it’s more puzzle than stealth. The game can easily be played by someone that’s as young as 3 years old or as old as 90 years old, with the same amount of enjoyment. There are plenty of jokes for people that have and haven’t played the games that inspired this, and boast a decent amount of content to come back to, especially if you’re a completionist. Never Stop Sneakin’ is a throwback title with a particular audience in mind, but allows for anyone to enjoy it – and that’s something special.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Music
• Blocky Visuals
• Simple to Play

Cons

• Perhaps Too Simple for Some
• Overly Repetitive

Never Stop Sneakin’ was developed and published by Humble Hearts. It was released on the NS December 14th, 2017 for $14.99. The game was provided to us for review on NS. For more on Never Stop Sneakin’, follow the developer’s Twitter.

 

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