Those who grew up with the Spy vs. Spy comic in Mad Magazine or even could take trip back to their childhood and remember the hours spent on the old NES game can attest to their fond memories they had of two opposing spies sporting either black and white outfits. Planting bombs, stealing loot and setting up traps for your opponents were simple objectives as a kid, and Vicious Cycle decided it was time to create a new installment of the famed title from years ago.
I love it when a lackluster developer will take it upon themselves to revive an old license that people hold dear to try to turn a quick buck. This formula is all too apparent in their attempt to bring Spy vs. Spy to a generation. That's right, the same people that brought you such gems as: last years' Robotech: Battlecry and the slightly less disappointing Robotech: Invasion are bringing back SvS, but this time, it's awful.
In starting the game up, (after a rather annoying CGI movie of both of the spies) we are treated to a rather barebones menu. Your options are certainly limited here. You'll probably just choose to play the main story mode where most of the fun (if you can even call it that) will be had.
You can of course, choose to be either the white or black spy and make your way through the ten or so levels. I must add that these levels will all leave you insanely bored. The objectives during story mode will have you disarming traps, defusing bombs, opening new paths and entrances to help you progress through the level and obtaining special items. Of course, your foe will show up at least once during the level and sometimes a second time as the boss. With such linear gameplay, it’s tough to devote too much attention to playing the game no matter what difficulty you have it set on. You can even retreat back to your "hideout" which will limitlessly replenish your health as many times as you want throughout the level; so, if you are looking for a challengeeeeeeee, you won't find it here.
Never mind the story, because even if I waste my own time writing about it and you waste your own time reading it, we'd both be losing out. Let me at least make a token effort to tell you what the Story Mode will mean to you when you play it.
Each level has a theme (i.e. the Carnival, Air craft carrier, Area 51, etc.) and the bosses and objectives are fairly relevant to your environment. When you complete levels throughout the game, you unlock a few goodies along the way; hey, at least there's some incentive to play, albeit nothing substantial. There is a "Mod-A-Spy" mode and some of the unlockables consist of unlockable costume items like hats and outfits...awesome. Concept art and CGI movies can also be unlocked, but your time would be better spent just looking for a code on some kinda online code repository.
The single player Story mode can be completed without much effort within a few hours, so this is where I would hope to tell you the multiplayer both online and off will pick up the slack in that department; but sadly, it doesn't. Some extra levels can be unlocked for the multiplayer mode by completing some single player levels. There is the basic Deathmatch, Last Man Standing which is just a limited version of Deathmatch, Armed and Loaded, which has you and your opponents vying to collect the most "bux" (why can’t they just call it "money"? Or maybe "cash"?) hidden away in the level. Get MAD mode is a game of holding onto the MAD logo hidden somewhere in the level and whoever can hold onto it the longest wins. Playing multiplayer online via Xbox Live just does not add to the fun factor that this title already is severely lacking.
"Classic Mode" is basically a 3D remake of the original Spy vs. Spy game, only without any of that pesky of entertainment value. Collect a series of items, set traps for your opponent and escape the building before your opponent. It just doesn't work for me in the 3D realm, at least not the way it was presented to me here.
Graphically, SvS looks just as bad as it plays. If we were back in 1999 and this title was on the Dreamcast, we wouldn't have raised an eyebrow. There is absolutely nothing noteworthy (outside of the 480p HD video) here visually. Talk about a step back. One of the only things I can say that is remotely positive is that I have not experienced a slowdown in frame rate.
The musical ambience featured in the levels tries to be relevant to the environment you're playing in, but after the first few times you play this title, you'll find yourself reaching for the "mute" button and crank up your stereo. This is why Microsoft created the custom soundtrack feature for the Xbox, unfortunately for us, most developers never figured out how to access it until the Xbox 360 came out. Sound effects range from goofy to just plan flat and are more often annoying than add to the game. Also, on two separate occasions the sound clips have frozen during gameplay which lead to a long buzzing sound until I finished the level. Sound like fun?
Controls are fairly easy to pick up right off the bat, though this is not saying much since the game is pretty straight forward. Put it this way, this may look like a spy game, but it certainly does not handle like Splinter Cell. Basic buttons will give way to basic (and boring) gameplay.
Overall, after playing this game one time through (ugh, tell me about it), I can confidentially say that I will never play this game ever again and never look back. This game is awful, plain and simple.
