Never Stop Sneakin 1 Hour

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Nostalgia is a tricky thing. We all feel it at one time or another, and it often seems nothing gets butts in the proverbial seats as reliably as the promise of remembering everything as it was, when you didn’t know any better and assumed the world was a simpler place. Maybe that’s why so many corporations and creators use it as a crutch for storytelling.

When you overuse nostalgia, though, it stinks of the laser-focused cynicism that launched Ernest Cline’s career. But there’s a happy medium. You can use reverence for the classics to launch into something entirely different—paying homage to the past without simply replicating it whole-cloth.

Never Stop Sneakin’, the stealth-comedy game from developer Humble Hearts, does just that. Anyone who has ever played one of the first three Metal Gear Solid games will immediately recognize Never Stop’s inspiration. The chunkiest of 3D graphics obviously mime the original PlayStation, a style that’s still a rarity in a sea of indie games leaning on pixel art. Its starting protagonist, Agent Hummingbird, is a stylistic mix of Solid Snake’s gruff masculinity and Raiden’s skinny-and-sultry gait. Even the game’s crooning theme song is an overt recreation of the iconic Snake Eater theme—itself a callback to early James Bond tunes.

Developer Humble Hearts clearly appreciates some tactical espionage action. But Never Stop Sneakin’ isn’t a direct riff on Konami’s once-flagship series. You stealth around enemies and take down a variety of wacky bosses, sure, but the action is extremely minimalist. You can play an entire level with a single finger: either a thumb on the control stick or a digit dragged across a touch screen. That makes it a perfect fit for the Nintendo Switch, where I’ve been playing the score-based sneak-em-up.

Winning on points

The scoring system is another big part of what makes Never Stop Sneakin’ more than just a bare imitation of its source material. Flitting up behind enemy guards causes Hummingbird to automatically dispatch the goons with a sword, adding to a score multiplier that decays over time. This transforms the game into a test of spatial planning for routes between your would-be pursuers. The more quickly—and often more reckless—you play, the stronger the multiplier. The higher your overall score, the more levels and playable characters you unlock.

Personally, though, I prefer sticking to Hummingbird. Humble Hearts clarified to me that the studio sees its avatar as female, internally, but some cut features mean they are never identified with gendered pronouns in-game. Combine that with the blocky, ill-defined graphics and Hummingbird comes across as an intentionally cheeky, unintentionally androgynous character—a far cry from the stoic, masculine Solid Snake. Calculated or not, the androgyny is a smooth progression of Metal Gear’s own metanarrative—one that has disavowed superficial fans’ macho fantasies since the PlayStation 2.

Seeing more of that pattern means earning more points. And the trick is that your score isn’t just tied to enemies. It mostly comes from scattered crystals called “ESP” (short for espionage). You could equate them to Pac-Man pellets or Geometry Wars’ geoms in reverse. More than the enemies themselves, these ESP are what you’re really after, forcing particular paths through levels in order to maximize rewards. Sometimes that even means standing stock still (burning precious combo meter) to hack open chests full of ESP.

Never stop goofin’

Obviously, “espionage” isn’t usually a tangible thing strewn about secret military bases. That’s just one of many gags Never Stop Sneakin’ places with one massive tongue firmly inside a cheek the size of Arizona. Its introductory cutscene shows a Colonel Campbell-like character making a slow-motion, multi-camera cut jump from an airplane just to grab a cup of coffee. The game’s main villain is the vice president of the United States, who uses a time machine to kidnap every president from history (“even the bad ones”).

It’s odd to parody a series that’s already completely bonkers, but sharp writing that recognizes the best and worst parts of the past makes it work. The Snake Eater theme did a great job setting the tone for MGS3, so why not use something similar to set Never Stop Sneakin’s irreverent emphasis with goofier lyrics? Never Stop Sneakin’ does more than acknowledge its inspirations. It uses them to build something new—mechanically and thematically—without simply clawing at forgotten magic.

It’s just a shame there isn’t more of that. The truly great jokes run out less than a fifth of the way into the game. A few new gags—like faux codec conversations and massive candy-cane cosmetics to replace your sword—pop up from time to time. For most of the game, though, the focus is on navigating increasingly long levels and perfecting your score rather than working toward the next guffaw-worthy moment.

Not that focusing on the gameplay is a bad thing. The use of enemy vision cones keeps the focus nominally on stealth and adds unique complexities to moving from foe to foe. It justifies the MGS roots while making something unique.

A few extra light roguelite elements spice up the proceedings, too. Bullets are limited, as are smoke grenades, EMP bombs, hit points, and armor. All of these munitions act as different flavors of simple get-out-of-jail-free cards. An EMP will knock out turrets and cameras, for instance, but not living opponents. A smoke bomb will blind everything in a certain radius, leaving you free to cut them down without fear of being detected. Bullets don’t have any range constraints, but they only affect a single target at a time.

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Each tool deploys automatically once you’re detected, which can be used intentionally to exchange ammo for the chance to keep a multiplier going. You need to be careful, though—as the game progresses, levels get longer and include more boss fights. Those special encounters, like the writing, could use a bit more variety.

Nostalgia done right

Never Stop Sneakin’ serves as a nice reminder that hearkening to the past doesn’t have to be charmless, even if other media sure makes it feel that way sometimes. Between Stranger Things (especially its disappointingly tone-deaf second season), the film adaptation of Cline’s juvenile flagship book (by someone who ostensibly should have understood its source material better), and yet more damn Transformers movies (which seem increasingly keen to capture that ‘80s adventure feel), two things seem clear: nostalgia baiting hasn’t slowed down just yet, and it’s mostly terrible.

It’s not entirely surprising that corporations, especially, would fall back on placating plots and “sure bets” in this time of political terror. There are some angry, predominantly white nerds who would like to wrap themselves in childhood, the time they felt safest and watched the most cartoons, while forcibly dissociating other kinds of people they didn’t know back then from both the safety and the media. Overwhelmingly, this audience also dictates what new things get made. Or it just rails against the new stuff for not putting its favorite power fantasies center stage—just like Never Stop Sneakin’ doesn’t, and its inspiration never really did.

So, yes. Never Stop Sneakin’ has its problems. But I’ve been shocked to find that few of them stem from the obvious nostalgia play. The game starts with a firm Metal Gear Solid send-up at its core, then builds an efficient level-based score attack game around it. It doesn’t really expand that premise enough or intersperse it with enough high-quality content. But it’s still great for a quick, low-stress hit of spatial combat. And perfect or not, Never Stop Sneakin’ has revived my faith that my gripe with nostalgia comes from the creators, not the sentiment.

The Good:

Irreverent humor and charming parody
Blocky PlayStation graphics are a breath of fresh air
Score chasing and spatial combat feel satisfying
Smartly uses nostalgia hooks without mindless baiting

The Bad:

Not enough boss variety
Writing thins out the farther you get
Can get repetitive

The Ugly:

Technically the graphics. Although that’s intentional.

Verdict:Never Stop Sneakin’ is an oasis of smart, earnest nostalgia in an ocean of cash grabs. Buy it!