Remember that opening scene from X-2: X-Men United where Nightcrawler is teleporting all over the place, beating people up every time he reappears? Take that, and merge it with a top-down beat-em-up, and you have a good idea of what Mr. Shifty is all about.

Players take control of the titular Mr. Shifty, a teleporting thief who is trying to steal “Super Plutonium” from the clutches of Chairman Stone, who seeks to weaponize it. To do so, however, Mr. Shifty will have to infiltrate Stone’s building, which is the “most secure facility on the planet.”

Mr. Shifty is a very simple game. Your goal is to clear a room by either eliminating all enemies or solving puzzles, with each stage consisting of a number of rooms. The catch here is that Mr. Shifty dies in one hit, and can only use his fists – or various objects he finds – as weapons. So you’re left with figuring out how to best utilize your teleporting abilities to shift through walls and sneak up on enemies. You’ll also have to teleport past deadly lasers, land mines, and explosives, all of which can also be used to take out enemies, if you’re crafty enough.

The game can actually be very creative with how it goes about its premise, with many of the game’s puzzles requiring on-the-fly thinking and its simple combat being tough and exciting.

With that said, the game can feel a bit repetitious after a while. As fun as it can be, Mr. Shifty’s bag of tricks does start to feel exhausted from time to time. It will introduce fun ideas (such as rooms that prevent you from teleporting, stripping you of your primary means of defense), but then keep using them to the point where you may start to get frustrated with them. This is especially true in times when you have to endure a gauntlet of enemies amid such moments, with a single death resulting in starting the whole gauntlet over.

This only intensifies as the game goes on, with the third act unfortunately being the low point of Mr. Shifty, as things really begin to drag on and on.

The aforementioned story is simple, and in case the “Super Plutonium” didn’t tip you off, is full of self-parody and jokes at the expense of gaming and action movie clichés. It can be decently funny at times, though at the same time, I don’t think it’s funny enough to be particularly memorable.

Mr. Shifty is also bogged down by some technical issues, with slow-downs and temporary freeze-ups being common occurrences. It’s by no means broken, but the technical blips are notable enough to hinder the experience somewhat.

When Mr. Shifty works, it’s a lot of fun. The teleporting mechanic brings a good dose of creativity to the puzzles, and the combat is delightfully reminiscent of the beat-em-ups of old. The visuals are also pretty decent for the genre, and the music – while maybe lacking in variety – fits the game well.

Mr. Shifty is a fun experience while it lasts, with simple and addicting gameplay that gets bonus points for the creativity in which it presents its key mechanic. But the increasing monotony, along with the technical issues do hold it back. Mr. Shifty is a game that wants desperately to be replayed over and over again so that players can beat their best times. But after the novelty wears off, it’s hard to say just how replayable Mr. Shifty would be.

5

Author: themancalledscott

Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combining, the man called Scott is an ancient sorcerer from a long-forgotten realm. He’s more machine now than man, twisted and evil. Or, you know, he could just be some guy who loves video games, animations and cinema who just wanted to write about such things. View all posts by themancalledscott