The dastardly Amadeus Guildenstern traveled through time and kidnapped all the presidents! Even the bad ones! It’s up to you, a super sneaky secret agent from the Department of Sneakin’, to stop his devious plans of world domination and rescue the presidents.
Never Stop Sneakin’ is the latest release from Dean Dodrill (of Dust: An Elysian Tale fame) and it’s a bit of a surprise in many ways. The game is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch for now and it eschews Dust’s deep gameplay mechanics in favor of simplified top-down stealth action. It is also an unbelievably silly parody of the Metal Gear Solid series.
Using either the analog sticks or touch controls, you steer your agent through procedurally generated maze-like levels full of guards, sentries, and other things that are supposed to keep intruders away. Actions are fully automated: just sneak up on an enemy for a silent takedown, or shoot them with a bullet if they detect you. You do have a bullet, right? These things are hard to come by, making a stealthy approach necessary.
What sets this apart from other stealth games is the pacing: Never Stop Sneakin’ truly feels like stealth on steroids. Forget about cowering in a corner and patiently waiting for your moment to strike. Here, you’re zipping around the levels, taking down guards left and right without pause. In fact, it feels best when you’re not thinking, just acting and reacting. Yes, this is simplified, maybe even too simplified, but it cuts all the right things to make it entertaining and, most importantly, feel right.
What’s more, this game is funny. Don’t even think you’ll get some sort of sensible plot here, the story is constantly chasing the next joke or the next silly take on genre tropes. And it actually hits the mark pretty often.
Unfortunately, all of this feels a tad too repetitive in the long run, but the Switch’s portable, pick-up-and-play design and the fact that you basically cannot unlearn any of the core mechanics allow you to put Never Stop Sneakin’ aside for a bit and then come back again. After all, the presidents need you! Even the bad ones.
You can purchase Never Stop Sneakin’ from the Nintendo eShop for $ 14.99. For more information, you can follow developer Dean Dodrill on Twitter or Facebook.
