Now that the dust has settled, what do we all think of Sneak King?

Before this last playthrough, I would've said Sneak King was the best of the trilogy with Big Bumpin' being the worst, but nearly twenty years removed, I'm afraid to say the BK hierarchy has changed.

It's tragic, because Sneak King's opening sets you up for something special. A still shot of a darkened driveway... The King appears from the shadows, stalking about like a predator, his visage a cruel mockery of the human form intended to disarm and draw in his prey. But this beast is no man, and his attempt mimicry is all wrong, glassy-eyed and without life. And then you boot up the game proper and find that it's just a crusty stealth title that asks you to do the same exact thing over and over and over again.

If Pocket Bike Racer's problem was too little content, then Sneak King's is that there's too much. Twenty missions spread out over four levels, but every mission tasks you with essentially the same objective: deliver delicious Burger King meals to hungry masses. The most variety you'll get in how you go about that is in what order you'll need to hit up the various NPCs sulking around the map or how often you're allowed to make a mistake. Sometimes you'll need to deliver [X] amount of meals without getting caught or by climbing into trash cans (coincidentally where I found my copy of this game, I think someone threw it out by mistake) or popping out of houses, but the amount of repetition here really sucks all the fun out. The King doesn't even need to take pentazemin to stop his hands from shaking when delivering Original Chicken Sandwiches™, this game's got no meat on its bones!

The controls are also horrible, which is something I actually wouldn't accuse the other two games of. Say what you will about Big Bumpin' and Pocket Bike Racer, but movement at least feels serviceable. Sneak King inverts the Y-axis and makes climbing into cover so laborious that your mark will likely move away or collapse from hunger before you're able to get into position. The King shrugging his shoulders and shaking his damn head because I botched the timing on his sandwich delivery while the camera was juttering behind a tree branch, what the fuck do you want from me, man? When we get to the sawmill I'm throwing your ass in a woodchipper [Warning: do not do this. The King cannot be killed by conventional means, he will come back and he will be stronger.]

Despite how bad it is, Sneak King is often the entry in the BK Trilogy that people talk about, because it is the most conceptually interesting of the bunch and the one to lean the hardest into the marketing that gave life to this iteration of The King. Tactical Burger Delivery Action is such a good-dumb idea that at least one man has dedicated his time and income to collecting any copy of the game he can find, and by a magnitude of cents it is the most consistently expensive title in the series on the aftermarket. Curiously, graded copies of the game are actually worth less than open CIBs. I understand the economics of this and why that's the case, but it's very funny to think Sneak King inherently has more value when played.

Ohhhh, wait a minute... Sneak King sounds like sneaking. Shit, I just got it.