Yooka-Stealthay
Spy Chameleon – RGB Agent is an arcade-y puzzle game that has you playing as a sly chameleon shifting your colour in order to slip undetected through the environment to the finish line. Of course, this starts off very simple with the bare basics as you can see below, but it quickly bares its teeth with its difficulty. There are checkpoints scattered around the longer levels but some people still found the game irritating, fortunately the devs listened and threw in an easy mode. Easy replaced “normal” and normal became “hard” mode for those who enjoyed the “skin of your teeth” moments the original difficulty had in ample amounts.
It quickly becomes a game of efficiently weaving through enemy paths and disguising yourself a split-second before being caught while crossing gaps. Though technically, the only objective is to finish the level… So you can actually take as long as you like and only move when you’re prepared, but I’m more in the “run like a madman” camp. Skidding across the line with literally milliseconds to spare before being detected is strangely intoxicating. The levels tend to be short anyway, encouraging that kind of risky behaviour. If you’re caught you simply begin from the start or last checkpoint as soon as you press a button.
As you’ve probably noticed from the images, there are also bonus objectives for each and every level. Mind, these are completely optional for those who can’t be bothered. Personally, I like them just for the completionist factor. The flies act as a rough guideline for each stage, letting the player know where to move ahead of time so finding the level exit isn’t trial and error. Grab 10 for each stage and you can tick that one off. Ladybirds are collectables intentionally put in an awkward place, testing your skill in order to nick them and make it to the end unscathed. A speedrun is… Well, what do you think?
My only niggle I can think of is that there’s no way to disable checkpoints and loading a checkpoint doesn’t stop the clock, so it’s useless for speedrunning a level. But that’s a minor problem. When you’re caught you’re presented with the option to restart the entire level, I just wish it was a bit faster. That’s what I thought “speedrun” mode was for, but to be honest I couldn’t work out the difference and it’s only available on hard mode. Your time is tracked per level by default in both normal and hard though, so I guess I’m missing something. I mean it’s got to be there for a reason, right?
So if you’re looking for an arcade-paced, stealth-puzzler thingy, then this is the game for you! Obviously a 360 controller is advised but is by no means necessary to enjoy the game. Just dodge all the robots, blend in to whatever you find, kick over paint cans to hide from the gaze of cameras and don’t get caught! I know there’s more mechanics ahead but I’ll leave you to find them… Both for surprise purposes and because I’m playing catch-up with myself on hard mode due to not realising it had switched to normal mode at some point… Whoops. Aw, well. Back to being an adorable reptilian spy it is!
