Stick It to the Man!

Editor's Notes

PS4 version reviewed.

Introduction

Zoink, an award winning development studio located in Sweden, have primarily focused their skills for the mobile market with titles like 'Adventure Time: Rock Bandits', 'Swing King', and 'Reality Fighters Dojo' for iOS and Android. And yet, they managed to branch out to the console spectrum with the recent 'Stick it to the Man!' and thereby broadened their footprint with platforms like the PlayStation 3, PS Vita, Wii U, PC, Mac and now, the PS4. 'Stick it to the Man!' appears on its surface to be taking visual cues from games like 'LittleBigPlanet' and 'Tearaway,' but at the same time appears to reflect a whole different avenue of humor, not to mention gameplay. Sounds intriguing, but does the gameplay and story provide enough creativity to seal the deal?

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

It's only fair that I'm honest and up front with you. Trying to describe and classify a game like 'Stick it to the Man!' is more than a little daunting. At its heart, it's a side scrolling platformer, but the theme and story of the game go so much deeper – like Freud and Jung on hallucinogens deep. Consequently, the result is one of the more creative, original, and enjoyable games I've had the pleasure of experiencing in recent memory.

The game begins with Ray, a hardhat tester who, ironically, is struck on the head by a canister that has fallen from a passing aircraft. The creature that crawls out from the canister and takes up residence in Ray's brain provides him with the ability to read minds through the use of a strange neon-lit arm that protrudes from the top of his head. Of course this new appendage can only be seen by Ray, and the power that it wields delivers a story that is a mix of Terry Gilliam style odd and Mel Brooks style funny.

While 'Stick it to the Man!' is based on the fundamentals of a side-scrolling platformer, these mechanics take a significant backseat to the more integral and interesting feature of character interaction through mind reading. Sticking your new hand to the heads of the characters you encounter allows you to read their thoughts. Doing so will often result in images (or stickers - think 'LittleBigPlanet') that can be pulled from the character's thought bubble and taken with you to help solve the problems and puzzles of other characters you will encounter.

Is the guard that's hunting you in need of sleep? Take their sleep-deprived thoughts and slap them onto another, forcing them into a deep slumber. Has the abominable snowman become self-conscious of his bald spot? Maybe the recently lost hair from the zombie choir director will help out. While the solutions to these puzzles increase in complexity as the game progresses, they nevertheless continue to be creative and comical.

The power of Ray's third arm isn't limited to mind reading alone. Like a child's sticky hand toy, it can be extended and attached to pins scattered throughout each level, propelling you to otherwise unreachable platforms. Creatively, the developers at Zoink have implemented this gameplay mechanic through the use of the DualShock 4's touch pad. Replicating a PC mouse or iPad touch screen, players can move a cursor on the screen and tap the pad to quickly attach Ray's hand. Although simplistic in theory, the application is often hit-or-miss. Where managing this from a PC mouse is likely an easy operation, the smaller touch pad of the DS4 results in the need for more strategic positioning of Ray's character – an option not always available when playing the game. While this was frequently a point of frustration – especially when running from the Men in Black hunters – it didn't necessarily ruin an otherwise fun and enjoyable game.