POSTED 14/8/13


STEALTH INC: A CLONE IN THE DARK

Curve Studios

You bastard! You utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, UTTER bastard!

Words we’ve hurled variously at Vita and PS3 whilst scrapping through this sneaky scanline-suffused, Impossible Mission-esque stealth puzzler – and we weren’t referring to its title before politically correct fuckwits got involved, Stealth Bastard. Uh, that was the title, not an insult to you, bastard reader. Yes, it seems ‘bastard’ is too harsh a word for the delicate sensitivities of PlayStation consumers, according to somebody. Who is, unequivocally, a bastard.

Yes, Stealth Bastard/Inc will expose any latent Tourette’s. Or, if you already swear like troopers allegedly do, it’ll make you swear like, erm, a squadron of troopers – at a giant jamboree of more troopers. Why? Its puzzles are bastards. Utter, utter...

Ahem.

You control an UZI-less Arnie-like clone. You must stick to shadows to avoid major sortie-ending zappingness from turrets, cameras, conveyors and more. Various environmental objects can be shuffled to provide convenient shadows, as you seek safe avenues to throwing switches and hacking computers to enable you to get the hell out... Only to face another brain-bulging challenge.

Seriously, compared to whoever’s behind these torturous puzzles GLaDOS is your mum. The mostly mocking messages that pop up in a fuck-knucklingly “Keep calm and...” style only add to the sheer, well, bastardry of everything.

But damn if it isn’t fun – in a ‘brain, I’m gonna make you earn those peanuts’ kinda way. Not only does just conquering each of 80 levels (plus endless extras thanks to a construction kit) provide sanity succour, completists must hunt for bastardly hidden helixes (or ‘helices’ if thou prefereth). Then there’s aiming for super-ace times to improve marks.

While ace on Vita, it’s easier to see goings-on playing via PS3 on an enormo-telly – with the squelchtastic analog soundtrack thumping through your stereo at ear-bleed level to wreak revenge on your subwoofer-obsessed neighbours...

Bastards!

CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!