Stealing with Style | The Marvellous Miss Take Review

<p>Over the years&comma; Stealth&bsol;Action oriented games have become a niche sub-genre&comma; with such notable titles as Metal Gear Solid&comma; Assassin&&num;8217&semi;s Creed&comma; Dishonored&comma; the Thief Games&comma; etc&period; etc&period; All of these games are fantastic in their own right&comma; and do stealth in their own unique ways&&num;8211&semi;rewarding patience&comma; tactical thinking&comma; and sometimes&comma; brute force&period; If you want a break from all of the AAA stealth games with dramatic and serious tones&comma; as well as more casual gameplay &lpar;although not completely casual&comma; as we&&num;8217&semi;ll see in a bit&rpar;&comma; this game may be the one for you&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The cleverly named &&num;8220&semi;Marvellous Miss Take&&num;8221&semi; is a game developed by <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;wonderstruckgames&period;com&sol;">Wonderstruck<&sol;a> and published by <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;risingstargames&period;com&sol;">Rising Star Games<&sol;a>&period; The game takes place in London&comma; England&comma; and focuses on a young woman named Miss Sophia Take &lpar;No&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m not making that up&rpar;&period; The game starts with Sophia in an art museum that has an incredibly overbearing lack of actual art&period; It turns out that Sophia&&num;8217&semi;s aunt owned a <em>marvellous <&sol;em>art collection&comma; and left it for Sophia in her will when she passed away&period; Unfortunately&comma; a greedy art snob forged Sophia&&num;8217&semi;s aunt&&num;8217&semi;s will so that all of the art was left to him&period; All of the art has been spread across 25 different museums &lpar;I didn&&num;8217&semi;t know one person could own that many museums&rpar;&comma; and Sophia takes it upon herself to steal back her aunt&&num;8217&semi;s art in the name of <em><strong>JUSTICE<&sol;strong><&sol;em><em>&excl;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Gameplay in The Marvellous Miss Take involves you going through various museums&comma; collecting valuable sculptures and paintings&comma; easily picked out by their golden color&period; Each level usually consists of 2 separate floors&comma; each with a certain number of art pieces you must collect&period; Collect every piece&comma; and you can move to the exit&period; Along the way&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;ll need to avoid security guards&comma; blood hounds&comma; and surveillance cameras&comma; each with their own special traits that require different strategies to avoid&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;media&period;gamerevolution&period;com&sol;images&sol;games&sol;pc&sol;the-marvellous-miss-take&sol;the-marvellous-miss-take&lowbar;007&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1213" height&equals;"682" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Every level consists of up to 3 different objectives to complete&comma; with the main objective&comma; collecting all of the art&comma; being the only one required to finish a level&period; These bonus objectives will add extra art to your gallery&period; They  include&colon; finishing a level within a par time&comma; finishing a level without being seen&comma; or collecting special sculptures encased in glass displays&comma; which require a bit more skill to obtain than the regular art&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Eventually&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;ll meet two new characters&comma; Harry Carver&comma; and Daisy Hobbs&period; Both Harry and Daisy become playable characters that you have to go back to previously completed levels with to steal more art&period; The levels are always changed slightly&comma; which gives them a fresh feel&comma; so that you don&&num;8217&semi;t get bored seeing the same levels over and over&period; The missions with Harry and Daisy are quite the step up in difficulty from Sophia&&num;8217&semi;s main missions&comma; with Daisy&&num;8217&semi;s missions being the most difficult in my opinion&period; Harry&&num;8217&semi;s levels involve him going around the museums at night&comma; which adds a very nice feel to the levels&period; The challenge to Harry&&num;8217&semi;s levels are that you can&&num;8217&semi;t be seen by guards &lpar;unless you don&&num;8217&semi;t care about bonus objectives&rpar;&comma; which at first doesn&&num;8217&semi;t sound horrible&comma; but then it&&num;8217&semi;s made worse by the fact that Harry has a bum leg&comma; and cannot run&period; Luckily&comma; the developers decided to show mercy on us&comma; and not give Harry&&num;8217&semi;s levels par times&comma; which I was very relieved to see&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Daisy&&num;8217&semi;s levels involve you picking keys off of guards and using them to open safes&comma; stealing cash and fake deeds to try and oust our villain&period; These levels are incredibly difficult&comma; because they require a <b><i>TON <&sol;i><&sol;b>of patience&comma; which is made even worse by the fact that these levels do&comma; in fact&comma; have par times&period; The problem is that when you open a safe&comma; an alarm will sound&comma; which will send any security guards in close proximity running towards the safe&period; If they&&num;8217&semi;re not far enough away for you to safely hide before they come running&comma; you have to either distract them so they&&num;8217&semi;ll move further away&comma; or wait&comma; both of which waste time if you&&num;8217&semi;re trying to complete the level quickly&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;static&period;gog&period;com&sol;upload&sol;images&sol;2014&sol;11&sol;51e906b12778d8c43fb03df8949796dc9714991b&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1298" height&equals;"730" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In certain levels&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;ll find different gadgets which you can use to your advantage&period; Things like teleporters to get you out of danger quickly&comma; smoke bombs to obscure the guard&&num;8217&semi;s line of sight&comma; and tape recorders that play sounds to distract guards&period; In addition&comma; you also have the ability to whistle at any time&comma; in order to lure guards to your location&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The overall gameplay is very solid and addicting&comma; the levels are nicely designed&period; The music is also very catchy&comma; although it gets incredibly tiring to hear the same few tracks play on loop from level to level&period; Where do I even begin with graphics&quest; I love them&period; The art style is wonderful&comma; the locations and characters really pop&comma; and all look unique&comma; and I never got tired of looking at it&period; I do wish there were a few more graphical options to play with&comma; other than shadows and resolution&comma; but what can you do&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>After about 6 levels&comma; the game becomes incredibly difficult&comma; incredibly fast&period; Normally&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m okay with this&comma; but sometimes the game just seemed unnecessarily hard&comma; especially in Daisy and Harry&&num;8217&semi;s levels&period; The combination of certain par times and the amount of things you needed to collect with the amount of guards you needed to avoid made the levels insanely stressful&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>My biggest complaint&comma; however&comma; is the default controls&period; They&&num;8217&semi;re terrible&period; The game&comma; by default&comma; is controlled entirely by the mouse&comma; and normally I&&num;8217&semi;m fine with that&comma; but this game requires very precise and careful movement&comma; where one missclick or a click that lasts just a bit too long can lead to everything crashing down on you&period; The problem mostly stems from the fact that running is toggled by holding the left mouse button down&period; In order to walk places stealthily&comma; you need to simply click on where you want to go&comma; which gives you a lot less control over where your character is going&comma; due to the fact that in order to actively control the direction of your movement&comma; you need to hold left click down&comma; which makes you run&period; Running makes noise&comma; so if you&&num;8217&semi;re hiding from a guard&comma; and try to move away quietly&comma; but accidentally click too long&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;ll be seen&period; This is a <b><i>HUGE<&sol;i> <&sol;b>problem that caused me to lose constantly&period; It wasn&&num;8217&semi;t until later that I discovered there were actually keyboard controls&comma; which I guess is sorta my fault&period; After some looking&comma; I also discovered that controller support was recently added to the game&period; So&comma; just do yourself a favor&comma; and use one of those two options&comma; because the mouse controls start working against you pretty fast&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;savegameonline&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;12&sol;marvellous-miss-take-3&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1294" height&equals;"728" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The most minor complaint I have about the game is the characters&colon; They&&num;8217&semi;re boring&period; Their designs are great&comma; but their actual personalities and dialogue are completely forgettable and cliche&period; I guess this isn&&num;8217&semi;t a game you&&num;8217&semi;d play for the stories and characters&comma; but there&&num;8217&semi;s quite a bit of dialogue in between levels&comma; so it would&&num;8217&semi;ve been nice to see characters develop in more interesting ways&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Overall&comma; The Marvellous Miss Take is a very good game&comma; one that I enjoyed playing immensely&period; I would definitely say it&&num;8217&semi;s worth the &dollar;20 price point&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a fairly lengthy game&comma; too&period; About 8-10 hours&comma; depending on how good you are&period; Even though there are technically only 25 levels&comma; you have to visit each level 3 times to complete the game&comma; not including the tutorial level&comma; so in reality&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s more like 73 levels&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a very good pick up and play kind of game&comma; one you can play for 20-30 minutes and make moderate progress&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re into stealth games&comma; and need something to play while waiting for Metal Gear Solid V&comma; give this one a shot&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Marvellous&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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