Thank you Ripstone for sending us this game to review!

Ray is a strong advocate of protective headwear and he works as a safety hat tester.  Ironically on his way home he gets hit in the head and wakes up with an alien named Ted controlling his brain.  Ray gains some new abilities such as reading minds and fast traveling through the 2D paper like world by swinging via thumbtacks.  Only Ray can see his new spaghetti like arm coming out of his head; his girlfriend thinks he’s crazy and tells him to see a doctor.  The downside to this new ability (besides people thinking Ray is crazy) is that government agents are now after him.  

Stick it to the Man! has ten chapters with the first couple being story and tutorial levels.  The controls are pretty straightforward.  One knob controls Ray while the other controls the alien hand.  Pushing the triggers activates the mind reading mode or grabbing mode of the spaghetti arm.  While there are some jumping areas, you can also collect, store, and use inventory items.

Some items are just lying about while others are hidden behind paper objects.  To get these objects you must peel away the paper via the exposed corner.  If you’re not paying attention, it can be easily overlooked.    Another way to get objects is to grab them from the thought bubbles that appear after reading a creature's mind.  Anything with a brain is fair game as you can earn achievements for reading the minds of animals.  The thoughts of the target are played through the PS4 controller.

Getting past multiple agents can be tricky and you’ll have to read their minds to grab helper objects.  For example when there are three agents blocking your path, you can put a sticker of Ray’s face on one of them to distract the other two.  I often failed and was relieved by the generous save points scattered across the levels.  When Ray dies he is simply re-printed at the last save point.   It’s a 2D paper world after all.

The graphics are colorful and unique.  The characters have floating heads that separate when talking and you can see the level’s background through their open mouth.  There’s a wide variety of unique characters that you’ll get to interact with.  The government agents are pretty much identical, similar to The Matrix.  

The colorful graphics drew my kids’ attention, but Stick it to the Man! deserves its Teen rating. There is some blood and violence worth taking into consideration.   One character is violently killed and resurrected as a zombie.  God’s name is used in vain and the word hell is uttered as well.   Lastly, there is a conversation between NPCs about a one night stand resulting in a pregnancy.  

The humor is good and the puzzles are not too complex.  I was able to solve them all without going online for hints.  I beat this game in a few hours and the only replay-ability would be to earn all of the possible achievements.  For $9.99 on PSN the price is very reasonable.  PlayStation Plus members can get this game for free and I recommend doing so if you’re a member.