Personal Computer News


Super Spy

Author: Jim Ballard
Publisher: Richard Shepherd
Machine: Dragon 32

 
Published in Personal Computer News #057

Bond's Away

Bond's Away

Super Spy gave me the impression it was an all-action James Bond type adventure game. To my dismay, I found it was more a series of mazes.

Objectives

Your mission is to seek out the evil Doctor Death, who is holding the world to ransom with a captured atomic missile. Once you've found him, all you do is defuse the missile and save the world - I think I've seen this at the pictures recently.

However, before the world is forever in your debt, you need to track down the evil Doc, and before you grab your passport and sun tan oil, you need some protection. The choice of weapons is rather dull - you get the choice of a bomb, a knife, guns or a digital watch with a secret wire. Only three of the five could be picked. Using a variety of the weapons, I found there was no difference between them apart from the fact some weapons could be used more than once.

Super Spy

So having tooled up, it's travel time. A screenful of destinations are printed, from which you take your pick. You can enter any location you want and you'll either get a clue or end up in a dodgy situation. When presented with food which was supposedly poisoned, I typed EXAMINE FOOD rather than SHOOT THE WAITER, my first reaction. To my surprise, I received a message in code from London, with directions.

Part two on Death's island is also text only. Unfortunately I found this stage lacking in atmosphere: you can only give directions or attack when confronted. The locations are mostly similar, differing only in the number of exits available. However, retracing my steps did not seem to lead back to the same places.

There's no returning to London if you run out of weapons and your strength dwindles with each attack you make. Fortunately, hidden somewhere on the island is a secret cache of energy pills which revitalise you. At one stage it seemed even the humble mountain goat was an enemy. You must use fists and feet, though I don't recall James Bond having to head-butt tarantulas. If you run away from trouble, or in sheer frustration try swearing at marauding wild natives, you'll get a severe ticking off.

If you make it through to stage three, you're in a 100 room maze. The graphics are limited to an overall plan of the building and a 3D view of each room. The plan is available only briefly and you can have only three looks altogether.

In the end, Super Spy is a rather disappointing game, but it has one saving feature - it's different every time.

Jim Ballard

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