The Weekly WTF: Deliver Burgers Like Solid Snake With ‘Sneak King’

Have you ever wondered how Metal Gear Solid would be with a few minor adjustments? We could probably dispense with all that convoluted nuclear conspiracy BS, after all. Less of the half hour codex prattle about eff all, and more stealthy burger deliveries. That's surely the way forward for the franchise.

This very notion inspired the brilliantly crazy-ass Sneak King. Except it didn't, but let's not get pernickety.

This little slice of madness is a commercial/video game from Burger King. Bearded badass Solid Snake doesn't feature, alas; we're stuck playing as the Burger King... King. You may remember this dude getting his ass fired in 2011 for not sufficiently hawking the company's gut-ravaging patties o' death, but this was 2006. Back then, slightly pervtastic-looking mascots were a-okay. Although somehow, Ronald McDonald is still going strong.

Anywho, yes. Sneak King. This Xbox and Xbox 360 title is a kind of sandbox/stealth/action/arcade game, first surfacing on the console's Live service. It was later deemed worthy of boxed-sale in Burger King stores (albeit for only an additional $3.99 when purchasing a value meal, so that's not exactly saying much, right there).

Your objective as the King is to administer emergency BK meals to hungry people, like some kind of heroic fat-dispenser. Each of the game's four levels (Cul-De-Sac, Downtown, Construction Zone and Saw Mill) offer you limited free-roamy liberation, and a choice of challenges to tackle. These will include maintaining combos, avoiding being detected, all of that fun stuff.

Stealthy shenanigans, apparently, are crucial to takeaway deliveries. We haven't seen the pizza guy frantically evading Metal Gear Solid-style cones of vision before, or silently taking down passers-by with a swift fist to the windpipe, but that's certainly par for the course here. The suggestion presumably being that Burger King is so tastetastic, the King would be stampeded for his Whoppers and BK Joes is anybody saw him. Nicely done, PR dudes.

It's a bizarre mechanic for a bizarre game. If a hungry person spots you before you have delivered their food to them, they will lose their appetite, and you your scoring opportunity. Nevertheless, making uninterrupted chains are the key to Sneak King mastery, so you and this freak will have to get your stealth on. Timing is of the essence too, maximum point-age is achieved by getting your Whopper out (not a dick joke) when the person concerned is at just the right level of hunger. So watch those icons.

In summation, it's all deeply, deeply nuts. Why is the King so damn creepy? Have you ever seen anyone ‘sneak' as camply as this bastard does? These questions may never be answered. What we can say for sure is that this is why fast food restaurants don't deliver: the whole thing would just be too ass-scratchingly weird.