We all remember Snake, right? I mean really, did those calculators have any other use? We’ve also all heard of Grand Theft Auto V right? Well, here’s NotGTAV…. It’s Snake.
Now, I want to start this with saying I’ve never actually played GTA V, nor do I have the intention to – it’s just not my kind of game. I HAVE seen some bits of it played, along with bits of previous GTA games. With that said, NotGTAV is a parody on GTA V. Based in Britain, you’ll go into three sections and do stuff to gain notoriety with three characters, eventually leading into a heist.
Of course, what you’re really doing is playing Snake. You got around, hit particular spots and grow your tail. You have to avoid running into the walls and various obstacles around the field. Two levels of each plot will have you needing to avoid stuff moving around the field until they head to Tea Time. Yeah, tea time. Oh, Britain.
Once you get into the “heists” you have two choices – avoid hitting the people as you complete your objective, or just murder everyone along the way. I decided to take the route of just murdering everyone which gives you a bunch of people on the map along with the regular objective. From what I’ve seen though, it does seem to spawn less enemies when you choose to try avoiding them. Of course, picking up the objectives adds to your “tail” that you still need to avoid going back over.
The basic Snake idea is definitely there, and there were times where my skills from playing it many, many years ago did come back. However, there were also times (such as on the third map) where I was just constantly dying due to going into the Thames, or getting caught by the Helicopter, or running into Big Ben, or just some combination of the above. Thankfully, some of the AI’s on the enemies seem incredibly predictable – such as with the protestors – and so it ends up just coming down to avoiding the terrain once you learn their pattern.
All of NotGTAV’s graphics were hand-drawn, and all of the sound effects were done with voices. The sound effects and voices are fantastic in this sense, though if you die a lot (like I did) you’ll probably get sick of them after a bit. This is due to the unfortunate fact that it seems there aren’t many available to choose from. Even the radio – which is only available on the third character – doesn’t seem like much, probably because it’s usually drowned out by the talking.
Once you complete each character’s story, the game encourages you to come back and play them on Hardcore. Hardcore is definitely a lot harder, as you move a lot faster. Be prepared to go into a lot of walls!
Sometimes, however, some of the hitboxes seem a bit weird. As do the controls reaction time. I’m pretty sure a good majority of my times driving into the Thames on the third level was me getting screwed over by delay. The hitboxes really seemed odd, especially with getting hit by some of the enemies in the notoriety building levels, like with the helicopter or the tank.
Right at the end, in the final heist, the screen size when you aren’t in full screen seems to present a bit of an issue. A lot of achievements come up then which cover a good portion of the screen. Issues aside with not knowing if it really was necessary to have that many achievements come up in one level, it does really get in the way for playing Snake.
While I never fully investigated it myself, it does seem there is a way to separately replay each character. Of course, the first time through you can only select what you’ve done so far. And even then, each story is locked into wherever they had been left off. A bit awkward, as I would have liked to just replay some of the heist levels on their own to try out the non-murder everyone route.
If you have a bit of a sense of humour, especially a bit of an adult sense of humour, then NotGTAV might be worth checking out for you. While a lot of the humour is definitely more aimed at British people, I still found myself laughing at it. And hey, when a game can get me to chuckle a little with just the disclaimer? That’s when I know it’s going to make me laugh. Again, while it’s definitely not for everyone, I quite enjoyed it. And hey, it was good to put my Snake skills to the test again!
NotGTAV Review Score
4/5
NotGTAV is available now on Steam.
