Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

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VideoGameCritic
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Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

Postby VideoGameCritic » February 25th, 2018, 8:45 pm

Anybody else try this one? It's basically just hide-n-seek. I can seem to get the hiding spots to register - even when I know where they are! They are listed in the manual.

This has the makings of a funny review.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

Postby Retro STrife » February 25th, 2018, 9:16 pm

Lol. I got this for Christmas this past year. My wife tries to find me one idiotic game as a joke gift each year and this is the latest one she picked (Lost Luggage the year before). I haven't played it yet, but I've watched videos on youtube and it looks hilariously lame and pointless. Doesn't seem like there's many hiding spots either, so it seems like it's just a matter of checking each spot until you find the person. I hope there's more strategy to it than that, but that's how it seemed in the video. Even if there is a single-player mode, this seems like the type of game that would be best reviewed for the multiplayer mode.

Looking forward to the review.

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Re: Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

Postby VideoGameCritic » February 25th, 2018, 10:29 pm

Retro - your wife got this for you and you didn't make her play it with you??
You need to play it with her and report back! It's your civic responsibility!
Could be some good review material in there.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

Postby Retro STrife » February 26th, 2018, 1:33 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:Retro - your wife got this for you and you didn't make her play it with you??
You need to play it with her and report back! It's your civic responsibility!
Could be some good review material in there.


Ha alright alright, we'll give it a shot. I have some other 2600 games that I've been meaning to play, so this will be a good excuse to pull it out.

By the way, I was looking at the Sneak n Peak box and manual last night. I see that there are 20 hiding spots across 4 screens, which is more hiding spots than I realized. And it seems like there is some minimal strategy involved, because for how ever long it takes you to hide, the seeker gets 4 times that amount of time to find you (i.e., if it takes you 10 seconds to hide, the seeker gets 40 seconds). I assume that encourages you to hide fast.. and for the seeker, the amount of time available might tip him off to how far away the hider is.

Also, with the box, I have to laugh at the fact that they call it "hide n seek at a spooky house"... I imagine that their original intent wasn't a spooky house, but that the limited graphics of the 2600 made the house look creepy, and rather than try to fix it, the developers just went with it. I also got a laugh out of the box saying that it's only made for "Ages 5-12". Besides educational titles, I've rarely seen a game that openly admits that it's too dumb for teenagers and adults to enjoy.

goldenband
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Re: Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

Postby goldenband » February 26th, 2018, 7:16 pm

I kinda like Sneak 'n Peek. It's definitely made for multiplayer, as the 1P mode is pointless but the 2P mode can be fun. I love the hilariously out-of-tune music (thanks to the limitations of the Atari's TIA), but am not so keen on the finickiness of the entry points to the hiding places.

I certainly don't understand why it gets so much hate. Like 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (which is also widely loathed), it at least delivers on exactly what it promises. That's more than a lot of "traditional" VCS games can say.

GameOfThrones
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Re: Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

Postby GameOfThrones » March 6th, 2018, 8:01 am

what a gorgeous present from a wife. just plain lovely. words cannot express how wonderful that is.
The game sounds interesting as well.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

Postby Retro STrife » March 6th, 2018, 10:43 am

GameOfThrones wrote:what a gorgeous present from a wife. just plain lovely. words cannot express how wonderful that is.
The game sounds interesting as well.


She's been warned that she has to play it now. It's on the to-do list. Hopefully this next weekend.

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Re: Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

Postby ptdebate » March 6th, 2018, 11:50 am

GameOfThrones wrote:what a gorgeous present from a wife. just plain lovely. words cannot express how wonderful that is.
The game sounds interesting as well.


I always enjoy your sense of humor :lol:

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Retro STrife
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Re: Sneak 'n Peak (Atari 2600)

Postby Retro STrife » May 20th, 2018, 11:42 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:Retro - your wife got this for you and you didn't make her play it with you??
You need to play it with her and report back! It's your civic responsibility!
Could be some good review material in there.


Took me long enough, but my wife and I finally got the chance to give this game a try. We played against each other and here were our thoughts:

-Let's start with my only positive remark: I think the graphics are pretty decent for a 2600 game. I could be wrong, but the house exterior and interior (and creating a slight 3D perspective), and the large characters, seem like a step up from the usual 2600 fare.

-Decent idea for a simple game (especially for kids), but the execution is terrible. It's funny that the box says Age 5-12 right on it.. but I don't think any 12 year old would find fun with this, and a 5 year old could never figure out these controls.

-The music is obnoxious. But even worse, it replays each time you enter another room. Presumably your human opponent has his/her back turned when you hide... but still, the music restarting gives away the fact that you are moving between rooms. Therefore we had to play with the sound off.

-I agree with you VGC -- it is impossible to get some of these hiding spots to register at all. At best, less than half of the 20 hiding spots are easy to use. This is the games biggest flaw. It basically requires you to have the manual too, because otherwise you'll never figure out most of the spots. And again, even when you know where they are, the game is not forgiving at all -- you must be 100% precise in your locations and movement to enter the spots. It took us around 15 minutes just to figure out how to hide under the bed. Another problem with this issue is that a good player (i.e., someone who is familiar with how to enter the spots) can always beat most other players by hiding in the spots that are hard to enter. No way that 5-12 year old kids could figure this stuff out.

-On a related note, this issue also makes it extra hard on the seeker. The seeker never enters a spot unless the hider is in there. So when you check a spot, you never actually know if you are checking it properly, since you don't enter it. So.. is your opponent not under the bed, or are you just failing to check that spot properly? There is no way to know. (At least as the hider, you know you aren't doing it right, because you aren't physically entering the hiding spot.)

-The character models have a strange appendage coming out from their waistline area. Supposedly it's an arm, but it definitely looks like something else.. And it makes you wonder what's really going on when Player 1 and Player 2 go behind the couch together...

-Bottom line: I know you were hoping for some hilarity VGC, but sadly any humor in this game comes solely from the concept and the box/manual. The game itself is just plain bad.. way too hard to play, and no excitement to make up for it. Playing it with a friend just generates frustration, without any laughs, so it doesn't even have any "so bad it's good" qualities. This is an F- game, through and through.


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