Stealth Inc. A Clone in the Dark is a new friend among familiar faces

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      Stealth Inc. A Clone in the Dark is a game for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita that promises to make you cry tears of joyous frustration, and it delivers on that promise.

      This 2-D platformer puts you in a lab where every level is a test. It plays like a cross between the cute and bloody aesthetic of Super Meat Boy with the mouse-in-a-maze world of the Portal series.

      It also addresses something I’ve wondered why most games don’t—why you have multiple lives in a game. Like the title says, you are a clone in the dark, one of many little dudes running through a perplexing series of ledges, lasers, and cliffs, all the while trying to move to the next shadow to avoid being seen by the many cameras that are out to trap you.

      When one dies, you start again with another, and every one looks like a cross between a minion from the Despicable Me movies with Invader Zim’s robot stooge Gir; who wouldn’t like that?

      Like a lot of these types of games, I let out a lot of f-bombs while playing. After figuring out a level’s puzzle, I couldn’t tell if I was really smart or dumb for finally getting it. It knows it’s frustrating, but at the same time it has that “I’ll quit after the next try” appeal, which a phrase I’d repeat many, many times over the course of a single stage.

      Upon trying a level again, you may find the occasional blood splatter or bone remnants of your previous attempts, which comes off as a nice touch to the graphic yet fun nature of the game.

      The controls are also very tight, which is essential in a game that forces you to be stealthy and patient one second and cannonballing with white-knuckle reflexes the next. Playing it with a proper controller really sets it apart from similar games that rely on touch controls or keys that aren’t as fluid.

      True to the game’s open-source roots, there is also a robust level-generator that you can use to make levels even more challenging than what’s found in the game. The possibilities are endless, but it also took me a lot of practice just to figure out how to make a floor.

      If it sounds like I can’t say enough good things about Stealth Inc., it’s true. If you love the likes of Super Meat Boy, Limbo, Meganoid, and the slew of other cute but violently punishing games that have come out lately, you’ll love this. Even though it’s hard to talk about it without referencing numerous other titles that are similar to it, there is enough here to set it apart as something distinct. Of course, if you don’t like those kinds of games, you won’t like Stealth Inc., either.

      Also, it needs to be said that the Kraftwerk-esque soundtrack is excellent.

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