Lasting First Impressions
This summer’s PlayStation PLAY promotion starts off impressively with Curve Studios‘ Stealth Inc. A Clone in the Dark. If one were to mix up Super Meat Boy with Metal Gear Solid, throw in some Portal and Splinter Cell, you would find yourself with an impressive stealth based puzzler with plenty of opportunities for death. This is what Curve Studios has so beautifully brought to life.
In Stealth Inc. A Clone in the Dark, players control a clone, one of very many, on a mission to escape the confines of a deadly facility whose only goal is to put an end to your tiny little life. Armed with nothing but your stealth goggles that illuminate green or red, indicating whether or not you can be seen, you must tackle each room as if your life depends on it. The slightest mistake will trigger the security measures and put an end to the tiny little clone’s life. Don’t worry, though, there’s plenty more where he came from.
Consisting of an impressive 64 levels of devious puzzles, the game starts off simple enough, gradually acclimatizing players to the world they now inhabit. Puzzles start off with the run of the mill moving blocks onto a pressure switch, hack a few terminals and open the door to the next room. Soon enough, however, the ante is raised, and players will find much more dangerous measures such as lasers, moving platforms and bloody death awaiting the smallest mistake. Luckily checkpoints are never far away and the endless supply of clones means the game continues unhindered. Several puzzles had me to near frustration until the solution seemed to just materialize in front of me and it all suddenly made sense. Stealth Inc. A Clone in the Dark strikes the perfect balance between satisfying puzzle solutions and frustratingly devious deaths. I never found myself so baffled with the game that I wanted to stop playing. There is a certain satisfaction found when the solution becomes clear and the only obstacle left in the way is myself.
Solving the puzzles here isn’t the only sense of satisfaction awaiting players in Stealth Inc. A Clone in the Dark. Once the puzzle had been solved, the player’s time is recorded on the Leaderboards and players are ranked based on how quickly they solved the room. In my first playthrough, I could never achieve a score good enough to even rank, which adds a much grander scale to the game as players will, inevitably, play each level again and again attempting to best their previous time.
Fans of stealth and puzzle games will not be disappointed in Curve Studios’ cute puzzler. It is clear why this was the first game available in this the PlayStation PLAY 2013 summer promotion. Available at one price for both PS3 and PS Vita, this is a first rate puzzle game that deserves its space on your hard drive.
Curve Studios, I gave you an hour and I am IMPRESSED.
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