X-Box 360 #1: Sneak King

Not too long ago I was sick with the flu. I wasn't able to do much besides lay on the couch and complain to my equally sick wife about how awful I felt. During this time I had a really weird recurring dream. In this dream I was a guy dressed in a king costume delivering food to skinny construction workers dreaming of cheeseburgers. Their dead faces still haunt me but luckily it was just a dream. Wait, it's a real game you say? Are you sure, because that would be a really weird concept for a game. I'd better dust off the ol' 360 and make sure you're not just messing with me.

Sure enough Sneak King is a real game, and it is actually a fairly fun one if you can get past the pure commercialism of it. Back in 2006 Burger King released three games that you could buy with value meals. One is a racing game, one is "multi-genre action" and this one, the best of the bunch, is a stealth game. The whole concept is likely to turn people off, but for me it feels like a throwback to a simpler time in video game history when games were thought of as toys and marketed to kids. There wasn't the seriousness and over the top production value that there is today. Of course I have to remind myself that this game is now almost a decade old. This is an old game that makes me think of when I used to play even older games. How old am I? I probably need that cheeseburger now.

In this game you wander around delivering food to hungry skinny people. They are all skinny and beautiful. The trick is that you have to sneak up on them. If they see you they are suddenly not hungry anymore and you hang your head in shame. Also if you don't deliver the food in time they will pass out from shear hunger. Has this ever happened to you? And if so, did you get right back up after it happened and start chopping down trees again? It is an important question. The challenges are scattered throughout the levels, and they get harder as they go. I was actually a bit surprised by how difficult this game could get. It is almost as if the developers actually cared about making a decent game. The game is split up into five large levels. Sadly they decided to go with realism in level design so we don't get to deliver any food in space. Instead we get places like a street during the day and another street at night. Each level has 20 challenges, so this makes for a total of 100. That's not too bad for a game that came packaged with a whopper.

So is this game actually worth playing? I think it is, but I am really awful at stealth games. It was nice to have one that was actually in my skill level. I think it was interesting to take such a lighthearted approach to the genre. Are there any other stealth games that go for whimsey over throat slitting? I know that it is basically a commercial for burgers, but at least they don't try to hide it. They mostly tell it like it is. There are some hungry people and you give them some food. It's not like the Whoppers give you super powers. You don't eat chicken fries and suddenly turn into Super King. It is a game that plays pretty well and knows what it is. That's worth a playthrough in my book. I just hope it turns our all my hazy memories are actual gameplay and not fever dreams. Let me know if it was actually all in my head.