Spy vs. Spy

"A fun game for 2-P, but not much else going for it..."

I was thinking of this game, since I just saw the Spy Vs. Spy collected edition in Borders, so I figured I would drop a review for everyone.

I've been a Spy Vs. Spy comic strip fan since I was a kid, so when the NES game out oh so many years ago, my sister and I were eager to try it out. While we had a lot of fun setting traps and laughing hysterically, it just wasn't a very good game. Especially in the 1-player mode. This has nothing to do with it being a NES game, it just wasn't a good game.

The concept of the game is simple: one player plays a white spy, the other (or a computer) plays the black spy. You run around a simple house looking for four items, and a briefcase to carry them in. If you encounter the opponent spy, you can mash buttons hoping to kill them. You can also kill your opponent by placing traps such as time bombs (which are pretty easy to avoid as your character turns blue if he steps in a room with one), water traps over the doors, springs in the walls, etc. When your opponent dies, they are out of the game for a few seconds, leaving you to search freely.

Not much else to it. Get the items, get out of the house.

Graphics: 3 (and this is for games of the era, I am not judging it by today's standards. That would just be silly): The spies looked cool, but everything else was badly colored and badly drawn. It was cool that everything in the game was interactive (well as interactive as it could be in this game, but that is a gameplay complaint), but since there really wasn't much in each room, it didn't matter much. The knife and err...I'll go with pipe, you can find as weapons look terrible, but they do some major damage. It's hard to tell since your character just kinda bends when he gets hits.

Sound: 1: No memorable sounds to speak of. The music was annoying, and the characters laughing (?) was even worse. It was like that dog Mutley, only even worse.

Gameplay: 3 : I know the Nintendo controller was limited, but basically one button does everything in this game. From selecting traps to bringing up the map, you just keep pressing the same button over and over again. It is just easier to use the first trap all the time so you don't have to keep pushing the buttons. And every time you look behind an object, you drop the item you are carrying. It's more than a little frustrating.

Replay Value: 5 for the first stage, 1 for the rest : The first stage is such a simple set-up. Six rooms in a rectangle. In 2-player mode, you can raise a lot of mayhem, and it's actually pretty fun. The rest of the stages are all sprawling complexes. Since the rooms all look alike, and the map is inconvenient, you have no clue what rooms you are visiting or if you've been there before. It's just too frustrating and I've never actually finished a game on any stage other than the first.

Fun Factor: 4 It's fun to play with a friend, but only for a few times. It's just too repetitive and there is nothing really to the game. Better off playing River City Ransom if you want to really have fun playing your NES with two players.

Overall: 3 This isn't one of the worst games of all time, but it's also not even close to one of the best. You can buy for 2-3 bucks, but you'll get bored of it pretty quick. Oddly enough, they ported this for Game Boy and Game Boy Color!

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/02, Updated 08/29/02