We'd make a pretty rubbish spy. We can barely manage to keep a lie going for long enough to be convincing, yet alone adopting an entire fake persona. And there's so much to keep an eye on too - from making sure you've got to right fake documents, to perfecting that foreign accent - and, of course, every spy's favourite enemy, bugs. And as a game about spies (or rather, assassins), bugs play a large part in Alekhine's Gun, too - in more ways than one.
It's probably fair to say from the start that Alekhine's Gun is a little bit ropey. Lacking a good few months of polish, it's a game that has a fair few issues, as you'll often come across things that don't seem to be working quite as they should. As a game where you play as an assassin in the middle of the Cold War, stealth understandably plays a huge part in the game - yet it also doesn't work quite as you'd expect.
For starters, enemies seem to be able to see you through some walls, but not through others - something that would be all the more frustrating if it wasn't for the fact that the enemies in Alekhine's Gun are a little bit dim. Well, OK, not a little bit - a lot. They're the absolute, bottom of the barrel, thick as two short planks enemies - and yet that's also what makes the game a lot of fun. Weirdly enough, Alekhine's Gun is one of those games where you find yourself having fun almost because of, rather in spite of the bugs. But as is often the way, it's kind of tricky to explain exactly what we mean about the game and its unique atmosphere by analytical prose - it's a lot easier with a helpful assassination anecdote. And boy, do we have one for you.
Picture the scene. It's late at night at the Magnat hotel, a luxury complex in Bern, Switzerland, and we're looking for information about our target, a man named Paolo Minelli. A member of the National Fascist Party (and presumably no relation to Liza), he's due to be meeting a secret agent here for a top secret discussion about, well, the sort of thing Nazis discuss - so probably sausages and gas chambers. You can tell the nefarious Nazis and their dodgy genetic experiments had a hand in things, anyway, as the hotel's staff appear to all be in some way related... Dodecatuplets, anyone?
Gunter on security, Gunther behind the desk
Being in Switzerland, it's only appropriate to adopt a code name, and while our agent insists on referring to himself by his own code name, we think we'll dub him Gaston for the mission. After all, French is one of Switzerland's four official languages, fact fans.
So, old Paolo is meant to be meeting with a spy, and it's up to us to tap their phone, and listen in on their conversation. Once we've got the details we need, we'll have to head off and top the shifty one nice and quietly, and keep the Nazi alive - apparently, he'll come in handy later. But in order to tap the phones, we first have to pick up a wiretapping kit our friends have handily left waiting in our room.
Only one problem - apparently, our room is currently out of bounds, and is marked as a suspected murder scene. The hotel staff opened it up earlier and found the guest was nowhere to be seen, but a puddle of blood was lying mysteriously on the floor right in the middle of the room - almost as though someone had tried to kill us, and had ended up getting the wrong man.
With our wiretapping equipment inside, and Switzerland's finest copper is on the outside, doing his best impression of Gandalf of the Gendarme, declaring that we shall not pass, things were looking bleak. With our basic distraction techniques proving somewhat ineffectual (effectively, whistling coyly at him while staring with dead eyes), things were looking bleak. So, we thought we'd try our luck. We'd just barge straight in, and if the copper wants to do something about it, well, he's welcome to try his luck. We've got some chloroform in our bag with his name on it.
Yet weirdly enough, while the copper seemed firm that we couldn't go in, what he actually seemed to mean was "please, step right this way!" as we can simply stroll past him without feeling even the slightest brush of the long arm of the law. Collecting our wiretapping equipment, and walking out with what could be a vital piece of evidence right past the crappy copper, we head back to the lobby. According to our notes, the only sensible place for a top secret spy to conduct his wiretapping is from within a public phonebooth, in plain view of the entire reception - and so that's where we head.
"I don't know who you are, I don't know what you want..."
Apparently in Switzerland, taking a briefcase into a phone box, unpacking it, and plugging it into the phone isn't considered weird - maybe their pay phones work differently to ours - and everything goes off without a hitch. The conversation thoroughly tapped, we learn that an exchange of documents is going to take place in the library, and head upstairs to surreptitiously watch, so we can figure out who the spy is. A brief cutscene and a quick book swapping session later, and we have our man - or at least, we know what he looks like.
That said, this isn't going to be an easy hit - in a hotel where all members of staff look almost identical, and all guests do too, perhaps the only thing that makes him stand out is a semi distinctive jacket. Either way, downstairs we go to try and top him.
Surveying the scene, it turns out our story's version of James Bond has spared no expense, and has a hired goon guarding his luxury dwelling. Whilst past experience dictates we could simply stroll past and punch the spy's lights out without raising an alarm, that seems too simple. Instead, we decide to be clever. More spy-like. "Ah", we think "here's a plan. Let's head next door, as there's no one guarding that. We can sneak in there, then see if we can find a way to move between the rooms, and do it all without getting spotted". And so, off we slunk, flinging the door open and diving into the room to get out of sight quickly.
Dammit.
While he may look somewhat less than impressed, ol' Herman the German here was forgiving enough, and didn't kick up a fuss at all about a burly bloke breaking into his room in the middle of the night, and standing nose to nose with him in his bedroom. Letting a heavy sigh of relief out from our Russian chest, we spotted a balcony through the door - and with it, our route to our target. All we had to do was head outside, and hopefully find a ledge to shimmy across, and we'd be well on our way, so long as Herman can keep a secret. And it seems a fairly affable chap.
Were it so easy.
You see, it turns out Herman might be totally OK with us storming his room, but setting foot on another man's balcony? That, sir, is beyond the pale - and we hadn't even managed to get half way across when out stepped Herman, face as red as a tomato bratwurst, to shout and gesture at us, as we slowly shimmy our way across to the balcony next door. Silently cursing him under our breath for spoiling our cover, we're left simply praying the balcony collapses under the assault of his immense temper tantrum and foot stomping, just to shut him up, but, no such luck. Still, before too long, we're at our target's door, and in another few seconds, Herman's forgotten what he was so angry about in the first place. Time to move in for the kill.
And so, in to the room we go - and after a brief moment to get our bearings, we find our spy has seemingly gone completely mad. Standing over a bath, making actions as though he's swishing water around, despite the bath being completely empty, we decide it's time to put him out of his misery before he can do other crazy, Nazi things. Moving in a little bit closer, we apply the garrotte.
A few seconds of struggling later, and it's goodnight sweetheart.
Now, as anyone who's played a stealth game before will tell you, just assassinating people is only half of the game - you need to do it quietly, and you need to make sure no one finds the body and suspects foul play. So, with the first part of the dirty deed done, it was time to try and make it look natural. Where could we put the body so that anyone who discovered it would just think it had happened without outside interference? After a few seconds spent trying to prop the body up on the toilet so it looked like he'd gone out like a/the king, we eventually settled on the bed. He just passed away, peacefully in his sleep. There. No one will suspect a thing.
Your reaction to the last picture will probably say a lot about how much you'll enjoy Alekhine's Gun. If you're the sort of person who's rolling their eyes, tutting at the poor collision detection, you'll likely spend most of your time with the game sighing at the frame rate dips and occasional graphical artefacts. But if you can find fun in games, regardless of their flaws, the Alekhine's Gun may be worth looking into when it starts to drop in price. Fun in the same way Driv3r was fun, due to the laughs you could have exploiting its bugs, Alekhine's Gun isn't quite the car crash everyone else seems to think it is - but if you're looking for a polished experience, you'd be best off looking elsewhere.
Format Reviewed: Playstation 4
