Review: Stick It to The Man (Switch)

by Danny Bivens

Damn this hand coming out of my brain!

Stick It To the Man revolves around the life of Ray and the weird events happening in his life. Ray works as a hard hat tester and is no stranger when it comes to taking a bump to the head. One day as he is returning home from work, a military plane carrying a top secret canister gets struck by lightening which. The strike causes the canister to plummet down to the earth and blindside Ray on his way home from work. The accident causes him to sprout an arm-like appendage from his head that enables Ray to read minds. Using Ray’s mind reading abilities, players control him through a quest to help other people, avoid the government and to retain his sanity.

Gameplay in Stick It To the Man consists of simple platforming on a 2.5D plane. One of the main gameplay conceits is Ray’s ability to read the minds of the NPCs around him. Sometimes reading minds just gives players some funny bit of dialog while other times the characters will have a speech bubble over their head that contains an item. From these bubbles, players can grab the items and use them in the game world. Some items, such as a strand of sleeping “Zzzz”s can be taken and put into government agents' heads to make them sleep to allow safe passage. Others are necessary to progress the story. Did you find a dead mouse? Good. You can probably use it to have that crazy lady follow you. Found a pair of legs? Okay, hand that off to the legless ghost over there. There are some really random situations and items that make this game funny and engaging.

The platforming and overall gameplay make for an experience that is generally relaxed and allows the main focus to be on the story. However, there are instances where you have to avoid enemy agents that are looking for Ray. These usually aren’t overly challenging and even if you get caught and zapped, save points are usually not too far away. These sections of the game weren’t bad per se, but they take a little bit away from the rest of the experience that is focusing heavily on progressing the story.

Visually, Stick It To the Man is a treat. It uses a paper-like aesthetic complete with characters that look like pieces of paper. This visual style lends itself to gameplay from time to time. For example, some of the buildings will have a noticeable piece hanging loose that you can grab. Usually, this reveals characters or something players can interact with that will help progress the story. It’s a nice touch.

It is also interesting to note that the game also features language support for all sorts of languages. Japanese is also included, albeit only with subtitles. I was a little bit let down as it would have been funny to hear how they would have tackled the voices, but with the amount of voice work here, I can understand just sticking with the subtitles. If you want to test your Japanese fluency, you could totally go for it.

Stick It To the Man does a great job at kicking off the experience with a bang but falters a little bit along the way. The gameplay mechanics are fun but I found myself getting a little annoyed by enemy encounters. Regardless, the game looks great and has funny dialog and voice acting that come together nicely to make an enjoyable experience.