Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Review: Sneak King (Xbox/X360)

Way back in November 2006, Burger King started selling actual videogames based on the Burger King (the creepy guy in the commercials) for the Xbox and the Xbox 360 for an extra $3.99 with any value meal. Sneak King was one of the three titles they sold (alongside Big Bumpin' and Pocketbike Racer), and it's my favorite out of the three. It borrows heavily from games like Metal Gear Solid, and does it fairly well, at least to some extent.

The basic premise is that you play as the King, and you run around the four levels, hiding in places like bushes, garbage cans, and piles of leaves, waiting for someone to walk by so you can jump out and give them a hamburger. Sounds fun, right? It is, for a while at least. As you can imagine, sneaking around handing out food gets a little repetitive after a while.

As I mentioned, there are only four levels (ranging from locales like a lumberyard to a Burger King parking lot), but there are twenty challenges per level, so there are 80 challenges in all, and each one only takes a few minutes to complete. You start out the levels in a sandbox-style, and from there, you run around the level looking for floating newspapers that represent the challenges in the level. After you finish a challenge, you are graded with a letter. The challenges are all pretty simple, just typical stuff like having to deliver so many hamburgers in so many minutes, that kind of stuff.

Now, you can't just run up to someone and give them a hamburger, you have to find hungry people (you can tell who they are because they have hamburger icons over their heads) and get food to them before they faint. The people all walk on a set path and have a Metal Gear Solid-style vision cone, and if you step in that cone, you're caught and they lose their appetite. If you do get the food to them in time, a meter pops up, and if you hit the "A" button at the right time, you get a Flourish score (depending on your button timing, and depending on your Flourish score, the King will do a little dance to celebrate, which is funny at first, but it gets a little annoying after a while), which multiplies your score for that particular delivery. If you deliver more than one burger without getting caught, you start building a chain, which also multiplies your score.

The graphics in the game are surprisingly decent. Don't get me wrong, it's no GTAIV, but they're decent. That being said, this is one of the creepiest looking games I think I've ever played. Think about it, you play as a giant-headed King (who already looks pretty creepy alone) jumping out of places giving people food. There are a few graphical glitches here and there, mainly with shadows, but nothing major. The sound is just...there. Nothing special, but nothing that will make you want to mute your TV right away.

All in all, this is a decent game...for about 3 hours, if that long. After that, it's pretty bland. This isn't exactly the deepest title out there, you know. You'll probably just play it for a weekend and then be done with it forever. This game is more for just sitting on your shelf and looking cool (which it does) than for playing. You do have to remember, though, that this was a budget-title, and basically just a big Burger King commercial, and on top of that, it was only $4. What can you get for $4, a hamburger?

I give this game a 3 out of 5.

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