STICK IT TO THE MAN

You just ripped the mouth off an Elvis clone while he was mid-song in order to slap it in a zombie choir-singer’s mouth, whose dulcet tones irritate his conductor so much he tears his own hair out, thus allowing you to pick the de craniumed locks up and put them on the head of a balding yeti who takes her newfound hair confidence a mite far as she abducts a nearby prison guard. Because she loves him.

Stick It To The Man is pretty weird when it wants to be, and it wants to be pretty weird most of the time. It’s a decidedly wacky game  you’ll likely immediately know if you like it or not from that statement  and it carries with it a sense of humour throughout. Even if it isn’t always funny.

All of this is being talked about instead of the game proper, because that’s where it falls down if only a bit. It’s a case of some simple platforming, the odd section of avoiding one-hit-to-kill-you guards and, in the main part, using the pink hand emanating from your head to read minds, pick up ‘stickers’ (they’re items, call them by their name) and solve puzzles that are either insultingly simple or make very little sense.

That sounds like dislike it’s not, it’s just putting things in very plain terms. Stick It To The Man isn’t a great game, but it is a good one. It is a surprising amount of fun sussing out some of the puzzles, even if it does devolve into just trying every sticker you have on something until you find it works, in typical point-and-click fashion. But the game has a good nature though it’s surprisingly dark at times and its friendly atmosphere is infectious. It’s easy enough to play through the entire game in one sitting, both because it’s not a difficult title and because it’s appealing enough to keep you wanting to play more.

This lack of length isn’t much of an issue  your ‘one sitting’, would be an extended sitting of around three to five hours. It’s the lack of depth and replayability that grates, as well as the general ease at which you can coast through most of the game without actually having to engage your brain. But that doesn’t stop Stick It To The Manfrom being fun, which it is, and totally worth a few of your Earth pounds.