Sure, there are some pretty big games out this week, but it’s also nice to take a minute and see what awesome new things are kicking around in the indie space from time to time. In a world littered with modern war-faring and the rimming of skies, it can be pretty refreshing to see some of the big ideas being dreamed up by little teams. Enter Stealth Bastard: Tactical Espionage Arsehole (you probably didn’t see him come in though. You know, because he’s stealthy).
Stealth Bastard hails from London, the cheeky little bugger. More specifically, the game is developed by a subset of people at Curve Studios, the gents who brought us Explodemon! (PSN, PC) and Fluidity (WiiWare). Imagine a cross between the stealth elements of Metal Gear Solid and the platforming elements of Super Meat Boy and you’ll have a fairly good idea of how Stealth Bastard plays (that, or you could just watch the embedded trailer below). It’s all the fun of being sneaky without the hassle of having to move slowly.
You’ll avoid security cameras, evade robots, and hack consoles in your efforts to reach the exit in each of the game’s 28 levels. That may not seem like enough, but thankfully a level editor is also included and it’s easy enough to download additional community levels. Oh, and it’s completely free! So, what are you waiting for? Head over to the site, download it, and take it for a spin. The game has been generating quite a bit of buzz in the last day or two, so if you run into any hiccups when connecting to the server, just try to be patient and/or try again later (did I mention it was free?).
I had so much fun playing Stealth Bastard yesterday that I actually ended up staying at work an hour late, simply because I don’t have a Windows PC at home. This is a fantastic initial offering, especially for free, but I’d love to see it expanded into a fully-fleshed out PSN/XBLA release too. It sounds like my wish might someday be granted – in a brief exchange on Twitter, the game’s creator told me that’s indeed the plan, but that they’re currently busy with other projects.
It’s free, it’s a small download, and it’s really fun. Give it a try. If you like it as much as I did, you might even think about throwing them a donation through their website. Better yet, show your appreciation by buying a copy of Explodemon! or Fluidity. If you do check it out, drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you thought of it.
Stealth Bastard is available for Windows as a free download from the game’s website.
If you want to show your support, Explodemon is available for $10 on PSN, Impulse, and Gamer’s Gate. Also, Fluidity is available on WiiWare for $12.
Pro-tip: The installer doesn’t appear to create a start menu entry or desktop shortcut and I had to right-click the .exe and selcet ‘Run as administrator’ on my Windows 7 machine in order to get it to behave properly. Hey, it’s free, what do you expect?
Source: Curve Studios