There’s no doubt that this generation, at times, has felt like it is partially built on homages to the past. Whether that’s in the form of straight-up ports, remakes, remasters, or simply cribbing the hell out of a former classic’s style, there has been an abundance of it to pour through. In the case of Spy Drops, there’s little question that it had its sights set on the revered Metal Gear Solid (full disclosure, I found it to be fine, but always felt it was over-hyped… so sue me), but knowing your goal and achieving it are obviously different things.

In principle, the game’s design has some things on its side to try to succeed. A few decades to analyze and digest what made it work would be a good start, and certainly newer hardware and gameplay trends could spice up what people already know in a variety of ways. To that end, the fact that Spy Drops has gone with randomly-generated missions, in theory opening the door to an infinitely-replayable version of the stealthy classic would seem to have potential. Throw in plenty of gear that you’ll then get quicker access to than in a story-driven affair, and you could also continue to get to be more effective (and possibly cool) as you go.

The problem is that the gap between the possibilities the developer envisioned, and the reality of what they’ve produced, is substantial and pretty disheartening. First, while I get trying to have the visuals emulate the early PlayStation era, I’m not sure I remember them being quite this funky. Certainly the difference between playing on a tube TV versus a crisp monitor is a big one, but some improved clarity for what’s in your environment could have helped. Second, considering that the gameplay hinges on the quality of stealth play, as you try to work your way through compounds evading detection, sneaking up on and then knocking out guards, it feels like the game stumbles on the job. For the most part you’re able to get away with tromping through, even triggering alarms, with the response of the facility you’re working to infiltrate generally staying manageable. Considering your close quarters abilities, when not sneaking up to knock guards out, are pretty poor, that almost balances it out though. Unfortunately the randomly-generated mission areas also unfortunately end up feeling generic by and far, and a few times I ended up being not even sure where to go.

While I can appreciate what the goal here was, the final product unfortunately falls woefully short of that mark. Perhaps there are some decent ideas peppered into the core design, but it feels like either a lack of time, patience, or capability contributed to them never being fully realized. If you’ve got an itch for some of that old MGS feel, you’d be better off finding an alternative for scratching it.