A playthrough of Kemco's 1988 license-based competitive action/strategy game for the NES, Spy vs. Spy. This video shows each of the eight levels played as White Spy. Spy vs. Spy for the NES is a port of an old 1984 computer game based on the comic strip that used to run in MAD Magazine. The Japanese version of the NES game was released in 1986, the US version in 1988, and the Europe version in 1990. The premise is simple, though it can be a bit difficult to glean by watching the game if you haven't played it before. Each stage (apparently all taking place in embassies) has five items, hidden in furniture, that need to be collected in order to escape: you need to find a sack of money, a passport, a key, an airline ticket, and because you can only hold one object in your hands at a time, the suitcase is needed to hold all the other items. Once you have all these things, you just run to the exit door and watch the fun little cinematic showing your escape. Everything is hidden, but thankfully you do have access to a map that shows the location of the items, the booby traps, and both players. Both spies require these items to escape, but only one can come out on top. This is where the weapons and traps come in. You can place booby traps in the furniture and on the doors to wipe out an unsuspecting or inattentive spy. If you are careful, you can disable traps with special items. For instance, if you know that a bucket of (electrical?) water has been put on top of a door you want to go through, you can find an umbrella and pass through it safely. There is also a knife and a club to be found, in case murder is more your thing. Each time one of the spies meets with an untimely end, they lose all of the items in their possession, they're sent back to their beginning room, and they get slapped with a timer penalty. That's about all there is to it. It's very simple, but it's very effective at getting friends yelling and swearing at each other as they race for the exit. The graphics and sounds are simple, but they do their job just fine - Spy vs. Spy is really a game that doesn't rely too much on a fancy presentation. The animations are fun, though, and the simplistic sprites reflect the line art of the comics well. Well, as well as can be done in a half-screen 8-bit series of line drawings, any way. The spies' personalities come through well with the animation, at least. The sound is somewhat less than great, though. That main tune plays incessantly and can be catchy at times, but you'll probably just find yourself muting it before too long. Every time you play, all of the items, weapons, and traps can be found in the same places, and the spies spawn in the same rooms every game. While this might not initially seem ideal, as long as both players are familiar with the layouts, it turns the game into something that's far more strategy-oriented than a simple hidden-object game. The downside is that the CPU is an idiot, so once you know the locations, you can beat it without much problem at all. Two players is definitely the way to go here. My sister and I used to play so much of this game when we were kids. They had it at one of the local rental shops, and even though we were never very good at, we always got a kick out of blowing each other up with all of the random traps. There's not much variety to it, and some of the later stages are a bit too maze-like for their own good, but there is potential to sink many, many hours here. And for anyone that really can't get enough of Spy vs. Spy, the NES also received a Japanese-only port of the sequel, The Island Caper. The Game Boy, however, also received a port of this sequel in all three territories. Despite the title, "Mad Magazine's Official Spy vs. Spy," making it sound like a port of this game, it is actually conversion of the The Island Caper. Random side note here - even though the games are completely unrelated, has anyone else noticed how Kemco seemed to like porting PC games featuring maze-like embassies to the NES? Between this an Rescue: The Embassy Mission.... I have no idea, it's just a random parallel I noticed. But they really did know good multiplayer gaming. This and North & South are proof of that. _ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (
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